IN 

John  Galen  Howard 
1864-1931 


THE  BOOK 

OF 

JACK  LONDON 

VOLUME   II 


1914.      JACK   LONDON-  WAR   CORRESPONDENT 
Just  departing  for  Vera  Cruz  with  General  Frederick  Funston 


THE    BOOK 

OF 

JACK    LONDON 


BY 

CHARMIAN  LONDON 


ILLUSTRATED   WITH 
PHOTOGRAPHS 

VOLUME   II 


NEW  YORK 

THE  CENTURY  CO. 

1921 


Copyright,  1921,  by 
THE  CEKTUHY  Co, 


Add1! 


GIFT 

d 


Printed  in  U.  S.  A. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

XXV    RETURN  FROM  KOREA;  DIVORCE      ....  3 

XXVI    "SPRAY"  CRUISE;  GLEN  ELLEN  FROM  NAPA; 

HOSPITAL;  SUMMER  AT  GLEN  ELLEN     .     .  29 

XXVII    SECOND  MARRIAGE;  LECTURE  TRIP;  BOSTON    .  76 

XXVIII    JAMAICA,  CUBA,  FLORIDA,  NEW  YORK  CITY    .  96 

XXIX    CHICAGO  ;  RETURN  TO  OAKLAND,  GLEN  ELLEN  ; 

EARTHQUAKE 112 

XXX    "SNARE "VOYAGE 142 

XXXI    THE  * '  SNARK  ' '  VOYAGE  ;  TRAMP  COLLIER  ' '  TY- 
MERIC"     VOYAGE;     ECUADOR;     PANAMA; 

HOME 162 

XXXII    RETURN  FROM  " SNARK"  VOYAGE;  A  DAUGH 
TER  is  BORN 179 

XXXIII  YACHT  "ROAMER" 196 

XXXIV  FOUR-HORSE  DRIVING  TRIP;  NEW  YORK  CITY  212 
XXXV    CAPE  HORN  VOYAGE 238 

XXXVI     THE  BAD  YEAR;  AGRICULTURE 252 

XXXVII    NEW  YORK;  MEXICO;  "ROAMER"       ...  282 

XXXVIII    "ROAMER";     RETURN     To     HAWAII;     GLEN 

ELLEN;  FORTIETH  YEAR 304 

XXXIX    THE  WAR;  HAWAII 320 

XL    THE  LAST  SUMMER 352 

XLI    APPENDIX 397 

v 


M842875 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

1914.    Jack   London — War   Correspondent       .       Frontispiece 

FACING  PAOB 

1905.    Jack  London  and  His  Daughters,  Joan  and  Bess    .  16 

1905.  "The  Sea  Wolf" 33 

1906.  Jack  London  and  Alexander  Irvine  at  Yale  Uni 
versity    80 

Jack  London,  Luther  Burbank,  Professor  Edgar  Lucien 

Larkin        144 

1906.  Jack  on  the  Way  to  Luther  Burbank 's    ....  144 
1908.    Jack  and  Charmian  London  in  Solomon  Islands    .  161 

1914.  Yawl  "Koamer" 208 

1907.  "Snark"  at  Pearl  Harbor 208 

Jack  London's  Imported  English  Sire  Stallion  "Neuadd 

Hillside" 225 

1915.  Jack  London  at  Truckee  with  "Cotty  V  Dogs     .  225 

1910.    Jack  London  on  Sonoma  Mountains  Overlooking 
the  Valley  of  the  Moon .256 

1913.    Jack  London  Contemplating  His  "Beauty  Ranch"  273 

1915.  At  Waikiki,  Honolulu 288 

1913.  Aboard  the  "Roamer" 288 

1916.  Jack  and  Charmian  London  at  Waikiki,  Honolulu  305 

1914.  Jack  and  Charmian  London  in  Vera  Cruz,  Mexico  305 

1916.    Jack  London,  6  Days  Before  He  Died    ....  336 

vii 


viii  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING     PAOI 

The  "Work-Room"  Low  Table  Where  He  Wrote  ...  353 
Jack  London  Two  Weeks  Before  His  Death  ....  368 
Jack  London's  Grave  on  Sonoma  Mountain  ,  385 


THE  BOOK 

OF 

JACK  LONDON 


THE 
BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

CHAPTER  XXV 

RETURN  FROM  KOREA;  DIVORCE 

Autumn,    1904 

ON  June  30,  1904,  still  in  the  ocean  aboard  the  in 
coming  S.S.  Korea,  from  Yokohama,  Jack  London 
was  served  with  papers  for  "separation  and  maintenance.'* 
Moreover,  he  learned  from  the  inhospitable  messenger  that 
an  attachment  had  been  levied  by  the  plaintiff  upon  his 
personal  property,  even  to  his  books,  "My  very  tools  of 
trade, "  as  he  designated  his  library.  The  attachment 
spread  to  whatever  funds  might  be  due  from  his  publishers, 
and  covered  his  balance  with  The  Examiner  for  the  war 
articles — all  of  it  revenue  which  in  his  provident  integrity 
he  had  sought  almost  solely  for  the  benefit  of  his  depend 
ents. 

He  was  generous  until  taken  advantage  of,  and  then — 
divinely  generous  still,  even  to  generosity  becoming,  in  the 
nature  of  things,  a  mere  duty.  When  questioned  as  to  a 
seemingly  short-sighted  attitude  that  might  work  disad 
vantage  to  himself,  his  philosophy  dictated  the  following: 

"If should  sell  off  everything  I  possess,  I  would 

say,  '  cheap  at  the  price.'  The  dollars  do  not  amount  to 
anything  to  me  where  human  relations  are  concerned.  I 
think  I  am  the  same  way  with  my  neck.  I  would  trust  it 
willingly  to  a  friend,  a  dear  friend,  and  if  that  friend 
should  chop  off  my  head,  my  head,  rolling  on  the  ground, 
would  say,  I  am  sure,  *  Cheap  at  the  price.'  So  I  shall  let 

3 


4  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

certain  powers  remain  in  So-and-So's  hands.  If  such 
power  is  misused,  why,  what  of  it?  The  extent  of  its  misuse 
would  be  as  nothing  to  the  fact  that  So-and-So  had  misused 
it,  and  I  prefer  to  give  the  chance." 

To  Cloudesley  he  sent  a  scribbled  note:  "Am  back, 
rushed  to  death,  and  trying  to  straighten  things  out.  At 
present  all  money  tied  up  (earned  and  unearned)  and  don't 
know  where  I'm  at." 

And  this  was  not  the  worst.  A  dear  and  wonderful 
friend  had  been  ruthlessly  named  as  co-respondent  in  the 
separation  complaint  and  of  course  there  ensued  all  the 
malodorous  notoriety  which  accompanies  such  attacks.  A 
hue  and  cry  went  up  from  a  hypocritical  capitalist  press, 
quite  as  if  Jack  London  were  the  first  youth  who  ever  re 
pented  of  a  marital  mistake. 

The  girl's  chief  reply  to  the  astonishing  accusations, 
as  recorded  in  the  Bay  dailies,  was  that  the  same  were 
"merely  vulgar."  Jack,  grieved  to  the  heart  that  his  be 
loved  friends  should  be  soiled  in  his  unfortunate  affairs, 
declined  to  comment  upon  the  latter  otherwise  than:  "I 
refuse  to  say  a  word  about  my  separation.  ...  A  man's 
private  affairs  are  his  private  affairs."  And  as  might  be 
surmised,  the  "Herbert  Wace"  of  the  "Letters"  was  wide 
ly  quoted.  To  the  girl  herself,  Jack  wrote,  in  part: 

"I  do  most  earnestly  hope  that  your  name  will  not  be  linked 
any  more  with  my  troubles.  It  will  soon  die  away,  I  believe.  And 
so  it  goes,  I  wander  through  life  delivering  hurts  to  all  that  know 
me.  .  .  .  And  so  one  pays  .  .  .  only,  it  is  the  woman  who  always 
pays. 

"Unspoilt  in  your  idealism?  And  think  of  me  as  unsaved  in 
my  materialism.  .  .  .  However,  I  am  changed.  Though  a  ma 
terialist  when  I  first  knew  you,  I  had  the  saving  grace  of  enthu 
siasm.  That  enthusiasm  is  the  thing  that  is  spoiled,  and  I  have 
become  too  sorry  a  thing  for  you  to  remember. " 

The  original  complaint,  a  lengthy  arraignment 
abounding  in  curious  charges,  was  eventually  withdrawn 


RETURN  FROM  KOREA;  DIVORCE  5 

and  another,  this  time  for  complete  divorce  instead  of  mere 
separation  and  maintenance,  and  on  the  ground  of  simple 
"  desertion, "  went  before  the  court  on  August  2,  1904. 
This  was  allowed  by  default,  Jack  London  not  appearing. 
Property  interests  were  adjusted  out  of  court. 

Shortening  down  already  insufficient  sleep,  beating  his 
head  with  his  fist  to  keep  awake,  Jack  plunged  deeper  than 
ever  into  work.  For  he  must  immediately  start  building 
the  new  home  for  his  little  girls ;  and  this  home,  in  addition 
to  his  other  driven  obligations,  he  personally  superintended. 
As  if  all  this  were  not  enough,  the  death  of  Mammy  Jennie's 
husband  made  it  incumbent  upon  him  to  take  over  her 
affairs. 

The  events  of  this  summer  of  1904  threw  Jack  into  a 
melancholia  that  he  tried  to  conceal  under  a  carefree  man 
ner  when  with  the  ' '  The  Crowd ' '  picnicking  in  the  hills,  or 
rollicking  in  the  Piedmont  swimming  baths — his  main  rec 
reations.  A  letter  to  me  aired  his  depression  over  the 
minuteness  of  human  generosity  and  fair  play : 

"It's  sometimes  a  dreary  thing  to  sit  and  watch  the  game 
played  in  the  small  and  petty  way.  One  who  not  only  takes  a  hand 
in  the  game,  but  calmly  sits  outside  as  well  and  watches,  usually 
sees  the  small  and  petty  way,  and  is  content  to  face  immediate 
losses,  knowing  that  the  ultimate  gain  is  his.  It  is  so  small,  so 
pitifully  small,  that  at  worst  it  can  produce  only  a  passing  glow 
of  anger,  and  after  that,  pity  only  remains,  and  tolerance  without 
confidence. — Oh,  why  can't  the  men  and  women  of  this  world  learn 
that  playing  the  game  in  the  small  way  is  the  losing  way?  They 
are  always  doomed  to  failure  when  they  play  against  the  one  who 
plays  in  the  large  way." 

So  bleak  was  his  spirit  for  a  while,  that  more  than  once 
he  considered,  though  with  a  terrible  cheerlessness,  return 
ing  to  the  old  order,  what  of  love  and  sorrow  for  the  babies. 
In  a  letter:  "Believe  me,  ...  it  has  taken  all  the  resolu 
tion  I  could  summon  to  prevent  my  going  back,  for  the  chil 
dren's  sake.  I  have  been  sadly  shaken  during  the  last 


6  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

forty-eight  hours — so  shaken  that  it  almost  seemed  easier 
for  me  to  sacrifice  myself  for  the  little  ones.  They  are 
such  joys,  such  perfect  little  human  creatures. "  But  in 
after  years  he  reviewed  his  state  at  that  time:  "If  I  had 
gone  back,  it  would  have  meant  suicide  or  insanity. " 

As  it  was,  he  was  with  the  children  frequently,  either  in 
their  home  or  his  own. 

My  people  wrote  to  me,  in  the  east,  that  he  had  come 
to  spend  a  week  at  Wake  Robin  Lodge,  and  his  regard  for 
the  beautiful  mountainside  had  only  extended. 

Manyoungi,  the  brightest  Korean  in  Jack's  train  with 
the  Japanese  First  Army,  had  been  brought  by  him  to  Cali 
fornia,  for  he  needed  just  such  a  servitor  to  relieve  him  of 
all  domestic  friction  in  the  little  flat.  This  boy,  resourceful 
and  comely,  took  prideful  charge  from  kitchen  to  study, 
and  made  entertaining  an  irresponsible  pleasure  to  "  Mas 
ter,  ' '  as  he  continued  to  designate  his  employer,  to  the  play 
ful  horror  of  jeering  friends,  radical  and  otherwise.  Find 
ing  it  useless,  Jack  gave  up  trying  to  dissuade  Manyoungi 
from  his  long-time  custom  with  European  travelers  to 
Korea,  and  submitted  willingly  to  the  ministrations  of  the 
perfect  servant  who  assumed  entire  care  of  his  wardrobe, 
even  to  dressing  him  in  the  morning.  Jack's  attitude  upon 
personal  service  was  to  the  effect  that  it  saved  him  priceless 
minutes  for  work  and  reading.  "Why  tie  my  own  shoes 
when  I  can  have  it  done  by  some  one  whose  business  it  is, 
while  I  am  improving  my  mind  or  entertaining  the  fellows 
who  drop  in ! ' ' 

And  many  were  the  fellows  who  dropped  in,  persons 
from  near  and  far  flocking  to  look  upon  the  face  and  hang 
upon  the  speech  of  the  young  writer.  Jack,  jealously  con 
serving  his  every  moment,  saved  hours  by  meeting  them  at 
mealtime : 

"Manyoungi,  there'll  be  two  to  dinner  this  evening — " 
or  a  dozen,  or  six;  and  the  table  blossomed  forthwith  by 
virtue  of  a  complete  set  of  exquisite  Haviland  china,  with 


RETURN  FROM  KOREA;  DIVORCE  7 

silver  and  crystal  and  napery  as  faultless;  to  all  of  which 
beauty  Jack,  hospitality  in  his  eye,  had  treated  his  longing 
soul  upon  taking  up  bachelor  life. 

"If  I  had  to  be  a  servant, "  he  would  muse,  "I'd  be 
just  such  an  one  as  Manyoungi.  He  possesses  what  I  un 
derstand  as  'the  spirit  of  service'  to  the  finest  degree." 

' '  The  spirit  of  service ' ' — he  appeared  to  love  the  quality, 
despite  the  popular  idea  of  his  socialism.  Out  of  his  own 
mouth:  "If  I  were  a  servant,  I'd  make  myself  the  finest 
servant  in  the  world." 

"The  Faith  of  Men,"  another  series  of  Klondike  yarns, 
and  ninth  volume  on  the  stretching  shelf,  had  been  pub 
lished  by  Macmillans  in  the  spring,  and  autumn  saw  * t  The 
Sea  Wolf"  beside  it.  The  latter  was  given  especially  high 
acclaim  by  the  reviewers.  However,  they  persisted  in 
pigeonholing  it  as  essentially ' '  a  man's  book — a  book  women 
would  not  care  for;"  and  it  was  with  loud  glee  that  Jack 
later  on  received  word  that  The  Ladies'  Home  Journal  had 
purchased  several  thousand  copies  to  be  used  as  premiums 
to  subscribers.  Meanwhile,  he  tried  his  hand  at  writing  a 
play,  based  upon  his  short  story  "Scorn  of  Women" — 
frankly  an  experiment.  This  play  at  various  times  intrigued 
the  fancy  of  one  and  another  of  "America's  foremost  ac 
tresses,"  but  was  never  performed.  Referring  to  the  com 
ment  of  one  star,  Jack  wrote  me : 

", }  in  suggestion  of  making  a  struggle  between  Freda  and 

Mrs.  E.  for  Capt.  E.,  violates  the  eternal  art  canon  of  UNITY. 
It  is  ANOTHER  story. 

"I  violated  all  the  conventional  art-canons,  but  not  one  eternal 
art  canon. 

"I  wrote  a  play  without  a  hero,  without  a  villain,  without  a 
love-motif,  and  with  two  leading  ladies. ' ' 

And  to  Anna  Strunsky : 

"Am  on  third  and  last  act  of  play,  adapted  from  'Scorn  of 
Women,'  to  be  called  'The  Way  of  Women.*  Not  a  big  effort. 


8  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

Wouldn't  dare  a  big  effort.    An  experiment  merely — lots  of  horse 
play,  etc.,  and  every  character,  even  Sitka  Charley,  is  belittled. ' ' 

Then,  in  another  paragraph,  concerning  his  health: 

"I  have  been  working  hard,  and  what  of  my  physical  af 
flictions  have  been  a  pretty  good  recluse.  .  .  .  Yes,  I  am  thin — 
seven  pounds  off  weight,  and  soft,  which  is  equivalent  to  twelve 
pounds  off  weight  altogether.  My  grippe  was  followed  by  a  nerv 
ous  itch,  which  heat  aggravated,  and  I  was  prevented  from  exer 
cising  for  weeks. ' ' 

The  " nervous  itch"  referred  to  gave  Jack  much  dis 
quietude  both  mental  and  physical,  and  to  the  skin-  and 
nerve-specialists  not  a  little  thought  and  experimentation. 
Under  the  most  minute  scrutiny,  the  skin  revealed  nothing 
that  would  lead  to  a  diagnosis.  Remained  only  to  go  into 
the  question  of  nerves.  The  patient's  dynamic  habits  of 
overwork  in  every  department  of  his  intellectual  life,  and 
his  relentless  limitation  of  repose,  afforded  good  reason; 
on  the  other  hand,  he  had  pursued  this  system  for  many 
years,  with  no  such  warning  as  the  present. 

By  a  process  of  elimination  common  to  his  drastic  fash 
ion,  he  hit  upon  an  apparently  innocent  custom  indulged  for 
some  months  past — that  of  munching  salted  pecans  and 
almonds  while  reading  in  bed.  Possibly  he  had  saturated 
himself  with  an  excess  of  salt.  (Physicians  often  reduce 
sodium  chloride  in  the  tissues  and  fluids  for  remedial  pur 
poses,  a  method  known  as  dechloridation.)  He  dropped  this 
saline  element  from  his  dietary.  The  itch  disappeared. 
Resuming  the  nut-refreshment,  the  affliction  took  a  new 
lease  of  his  hypersensitive  surfaces,  which  flamed  intoler 
ably  at  the  slightest  exertion.  So  acute  was  the  disorder, 
that  even  the  thought  of  it  precipitated  an  attack. 

After  convincing  himself  that  salt  was  the  offending 
factor,  Jack  went  gaily  to  the  specialists  with  his  findings, 
and  they  agreed  with  his  conclusion.  His  diagnosis  was 
verified  to  his  entire  satisfaction  when  in  tropic  climes  re- 


EETUBN  FROM  KOREA;  DIVORCE  9 

lapses  followed  long  exposure  to  salt  air  and  water;  and 
even  under  a  bright  California  sky  in  long  periods  of  mid 
winter  yachting. 

But  there  was  no  diminishing  of  his  work;  rather,  he 
increased  the  staggering  pace.  Having  reeled  off  an  article 
entitled  "The  Yellow  Peril"  (now  in  collection  " Revolu 
tion  "),  in  which  his  sage  views  on  the  Asiatic  situation  were 
presented,  he  tackled  a  short  novel.  This  was  c  '  The  Game, " 
which  might  be  termed  a  prizefight  idyl — its  overarching 
motif  being  man's  eternal  struggle  between  woman  and 
career.  He  wrote  me : 

"Am  slowly  weaving  'The  Game.'  You  wouldn't  think  it  diffi 
cult  if  you  read  it.  Most  likely  a  failure,  but  it  is  a  splendid 
exercise  for  me.  I  am  learning  more  of  my  craft.  Some  day  I  may 
master  my  tools." 

He  loved  the  writing  of  it,  for,  like  Keats,  he  loved  a  fair 
contest  between  man  and  man.  It  was  not  for  the  prize  nor 
for  brutality's  sake,  but  for  the  cleanness  of  a  scientific 
game — Anglo-Saxon  sport,  square  and  true,  as  say  against 
some  other  national  sports  like  bull-fighting,  where  as  a 
rule  one  contestant  is  doomed  through  trickery  of  superior 
intelligence. 

He  enjoyed  the  creating  of  Genevieve,  line  for  line. 
"Why,  you'd  never  guess  where  I  got  my  model  for  her," 
he  said  to  me  afterward.  ' i  She  was  a  candy-girl  in  a  poor 
little  sweet-shop  in  London.  I  never  saw  such  a  skin — 
sprayed  with  color  like  your  Duchesse  roses  out  the  window 
there.  I  used  to  hunt  up  a  thirst  for  gallons  of  soft  drinks 
just  for  excuse  to  go  and  sit  at  the  dingy  little  counter  and 
look  shyly  at  her  face,  as  a  silly  boy  might.  I  did  not  even 
want  to  touch  her — and  she  hadn't  a  thing  in  her  yellow 
head  to  talk  about.  It  was  just  an  abandonment  to  the 
prettiness  and  fragility  of  her  English  bloom." 

"The  Game"  was  serialized  in  The  Metropolitan  Maga 
zine,  illustrated  by  Henry  Hutt  in  water-colors.  And  Jack 


10       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

had  been  right :  it  was  for  the  most  part  a  failure,  so  far  as 
concerned  the  American  public.  For  readers  listened  to 
the  uncomprehending  words  of  space-writers  who  totally 
missed  the  big  motif,  and  neither  knew  nor  cared  to  know 
aught  of  "the  game"  itself.  Timely  to  the  subject,  I  quote 
entire  a  letter  Jack  London  wrote  on  August  18, 1905,  to  the 
editor  of  the  New  York  Times: 

"As  one  interested  in  the  play  of  life,  and  in  the  mental 
processes  of  his  fellow-creatures,  I  have  been  somewhat  amused  by 
a  certain  feature  of  the  criticisms  of  my  prize-fighting  story,  'The 
Game.'  This  feature  is  the  impeachment  of  my  realism,  the  chal 
lenging  of  the  facts  of  life  as  put  down  by  me  in  that  story.  It  is 
rather  hard  on  a  poor  devil  of  a  writer,  when  he  has  written  what 
he  has  seen  with  his  own  eyes,  or  experienced  in  his  own  body,  to 
have  it  charged  that  said  sights  and  experiences  are  unreal  and 
impossible. 

'  *  But  this  is  no  new  experience,  after  all.  I  remember  a  review 
of  'The  Sea  Wolf  by  an  Atlantic  Coast  critic  who  seemed  very 
familiar  with  the  sea.  Said  critic  laughed  hugely  at  me  because  I 
sent  one  of  my  characters  aloft  to  shift  over  a  gaff-topsail.  The 
critic  said  that  no  one  ever  went  aloft  to  shift  over  a  gaff-topsail, 
and  that  he  knew  what  he  was  talking  about  because  he  had  seen 
many  gaff-topsails  shifted  over  from  the  deck.  Yet  I,  on  a  seven- 
months'  cruise  in  a  topmast  schooner,  had  gone  aloft,  I  suppose, 
a  hundred  times,  and  with  my  own  hands  shifted  tacks  and  sheets 
of  gaff-topsails. 

"Now  to  come  back  to  'The  Game.'  As  reviewed  in  the  New 
York  Saturday  Times,  fault  was  found  with  my  realism.  I  doubt 
if  this  reviewer  has  had  as  much  experience  in  such  matters  as  I 
have.  I  doubt  if  he  knows  what  it  is  to  be  knocked  out,  or  to  knock 
out  another  man.  I  have  had  these  experiences,  and  it  was  out  of 
these  experiences,  plus  a  fairly  intimate  knowledge  of  prize-fighting 
in  general,  that  I  wrote  'The  Game.' 

"I  quote  from  the  critic  in  the  Saturday  Times: 

"  'Still  more  one  gently  doubts  in  this  particular 
case,  that  a  blow  delivered  by  Ponta  on  the  point  of 
Fleming's  chin  could  throw  the  latter  upon  the 


RETURN  FROM  KOREA;  DIVORCE  11 

padded  canvas  floor  of  the  ring  with  enough  force  to 
smash  in  the  whole  back  of  his  skull,  as  Mr.  London 
describes. ' 

' '  All  I  can  say  in  reply  is,  that  a  young  fighter  in  the  very  club 
described  in  my  book,  had  his  head  smashed  in  this  manner.  Inci 
dentally,  this  young  fighter  worked  in  a  sail-loft  and  took  remark 
ably  good  care  of  his  mother,  brother  and  sisters. 

"And — oh,  one  word  more.  I  have  just  received  a  letter  from 
Jimmy  Britt,  light-weight  champion  of  the  world,  in  which  he  tells 
me  that  he  particularly  enjoyed  'The  Game/  'on  account  of  its 
trueness  to  life.' 

"Very  truly  yours, 

"Jack  London/' 

Jack  always  remained  a  champion  of  this  book  of  his, 
not  only  in  view  of  its  subject  but  also  of  his  workmanship. 
When  Great  Britain  received  it  with  intense  appreciation, 
placing  "this  cameo  of  the  ring"  alongside  other  favorites 
like  "Cashel  Byron's  Profession,"  the  author  was  exultant 
with  vindication.  And  yet,  only  the  other  day  in  fact,  I 
picked  up  an  American  newspaper  clipping  in  which  '  *  The 
Game"  was  tossed  aside  as  "that  Jack  London  novel  with 
out  an  excuse!" 

With  reference  to  some  tentative  and  evidently  short 
sighted  criticism  I  had  made  of  the  manuscript,  he  re 
sponded  : 

"And,  by  the  way,  remember  that  anybody,  by  hard 
work,  can  achieve  precision  of  language,  but  that  very  few 
can  achieve  strength  of  style.  What  knocks  E ?  Pre 
cision.  To  be  precise  he  has  pruned  away  all  strength. 
What  the  world  wants  is  strength  of  utterance,  not  pre 
cision  of  utterance.  Remember  that  about  all  the  precise 
ways  of  saying  things  have  already  been  said ;  the  person 
who  would  be  precise  is  merely  an  echo  of  all  the  precise 
people  who  have  gone  before,  and  such  a  person's  work  is 
bound  to  be  colorless  and  insipid.  Think  it  over.  Let  us 
talk  all  these  things  over." 


12       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

I  remember,  when  he  referred  to  a  rusty  pipe  as  "a 
streak  of  rust,"  wishing  that  I  had  thought  of  it  first! 

Ere  the  ink  was  dry  on  the  packet  that  inclosed  his 
manuscript  of  ' '  The  Game ' '  to  the  editor,  he  was  busy  upon 
memoranda  for  his  next  novel  in  mind,  ''White  Fang." 
On  December  6,  I  received  a  handful  of  notes  by  mail,  with 
the  following  comments : 

1 '  Find  here,  and  please  return,  the  motif  for  my  very  next  book. 
A  companion  to  "The  Call  of  the  Wild.'  Beginning  at  the  very 
opposite  end — evolution  instead  of  devolution;  civilization  instead 
of  decivilization.  It  is  distinctly  NOT  to  be  a  sequel.  Merely 
same  length,  dog-story,  and  companion  story.  I  shall  not  call  it 
'  Call  of  the  Tame, '  but  shall  have  title  quite  dissimilar  to  '  Call  of 
Wild.'  There  are  lots  of  difficulties  in  the  way,  but  I  believe  I 
can  make  a  cracker  jack  of  it — have  quit  the  play  for  a  day  to 
think  about  it. 

"May  go  East  in  January  after  all  for  two  or  three  months — 
lecturing." 

By  now,  I  was  back  from  the  east  and  living  at  Wake 
Eobin  Lodge  with  my  Aunt,  putting  in  hours  a  day  at  the 
piano.  Meanwhile  my  services  were  offered  to  Jack  in 
the  matter  of  relieving  him  of  typewriting,  a  suggestion 
that  met  with  glad  response ;  and  I  was  thus  brought  into 
closer  touch  with  his  work  and  aims.  My  remuneration — 
and  that  a  treasure — was  the  possession  of  his  handwritten 
pages.  Except  for  a  few  short  stories  and  articles,  the 
play  " Scorn  of  Women"  was  my  first  typing  for  him,  and 
by  mail  we  exchanged  some  lively  discussions  of  its  tech 
nique  before  final  completion.  One  of  his  letters  contains 
this  lamentation : 

"I  did  1000  words  (dialogue  and  direction)  on  the  first  act  of 
the  play  to-day.  Oh,  how  it  puzzles  me  and  worries  me,  that  play. 
Sometimes  all  seems  clear  (and  good)  and  next  it  seems  all  rot  and 
a  rotten  failure.  But  I  do  n't  care.  Though  I  never  get  a  cent  for 
it,  I'm  learning  a  whole  lot  about  play-writing." 


RETURN  FROM  KOREA;  DIVORCE  13 

Here  are  the  last  two  1904  communications  to  Cloudesley 
Johns : 

"1216  Telegraph  Avenue, 

"Dec.  8,  1904. 

"I  had  to  tell  Black  Cat  that  the  idea  of  my  story  was  not 
original  [this  was '  A  Nose  for  the  King, '  published  in  The  Black  Cat 
for  March,  1906,  and  collected  in  'When  God  Laughs']  having  been 
told  me  by  a  Korean.  So  I  don't  know  whether  my  chance  is 
spoiled  or  not. 

"Sure,  I'll  come  to  stay  with  you — if  I  can  bring  Manyoungi. 
Only  too  glad.  Expect  to  be  down  in  first  part  of  January. 

' '  I  went  to  look  at  the  Spray  to-day.  First  time  since  that  night 
we  came  in  from  Petaluma.  Won't  be  able  to  get  out  on  her  this 
year. ' ' 

I  have  heard  Jack  London  remark  that  Miss  Mary 
Shaw,  whom  he  met  after  a  San  Francisco  performance  of 
"Mrs.  Warren's  Profession,"  was  the  most  intellectual 
actress  he  had  ever  talked  with.  And  to  Cloudesley: 

"Yes— met  Miss  Shaw — went  to  dinner.  Liked  her  better  than 
any  actress  ever  met." 

Every  moment  energy  incarnate,  he  rushed  and  crowded 
as  if  to  preclude  thinking  of  aught  except  the  work  or  re 
creation  of  the  moment.  Speed,  speed — and  he  began  sav 
ing  for  a  big  red  motor-car  to  mend  the  general  pace.  He 
fell  ill — another  severe  attack  of  grippe  that  compelled 
him  to  ease  up ;  but  the  instant  his  brain  cleared  of  dizziness, 
his  incredible  activities  were  resumed.  And  he  always  made 
it  a  religious  duty  personally  to  answer  every  letter  re 
ceived.  Often  I  read  the  following,  at  the  end  of  hastily 
scrawled  notes  to  me :  "  This  is  the  last  of  30  [or  40,  or  50] 
letters  I  have  just  reeled  off." 

And  this: 

1  '  I  never  had  time  to  bore  myself — Do  you  know  I  never 
have  a  moment  with  myself — am  always  doing  something 


14       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

when  I  am  alone — I  shall  work  till  midnight  to-night,  then 
bed,  and  read  myself  to  sleep." 

To  which  I,  tinged  with  sorrow  and  foreboding: 
"You  make  me   sad.     You  haven't  time  to  live;  so 
what's  the  use  of  living?" 

One  of  Jack's  relaxations,  if  the  word  can  apply  to  the 
tense  interest  he  took  in  game  and  sport,  and  his  unquench 
able  joy  in  the  pard-like  beauty  of  an  athlete,  was  following 
the  monthly  boxing  bouts  at  the  West  Oakland  Athletic 
Club,  the  scene  of  the  prizefight  in  "The  Game."  A  char 
acteristic  incident  has  been  offered  me  by  a  newspaperman, 
Mr.  Fred  Goodcell,  who  made  his  acquaintance  one  day 
when  Jack  had,  for  the  first  time  in  years,  dropped  in  to 
see  his  old  friend  Johnny  Heinold  in  the  First  and  Last 
Chance.  I  give  Mr.  GoodcelPs  version  of  one  evening  that 
Jack  described  to  me  at  the  time : 

"It  was  some  weeks  later  that  I  met  Jack  again.  I  call  him 
Jack,  not  because  close  acquaintanceship  would  permit,  but  because 
I  believe  all  the  world  thinks  of  him  in  that  intimate  way.  He 
was  n't  a  man  to  be  Mistered. 

* '  This  second  meeting  was  at  the  box  office  of  the  West  Oakland 
Athletic  Club.  The  bouts  were  staged  in  an  upstairs  hall,  far  too 
small  for  the  crowds  that  came,  a  fire  trap  that  would  make  a  Hun 
bomb  thrower  envious,  but  sweating,  shouting,  smoking  fight-fans 
gathered  there  and  cheered  the  'ham  and  egg'  boys  as  they  slugged 
through  four  rounds,  unless  a  knockout  brought  earlier  surcease. 

"Jack  was  at  the  box  office  trying  to  buy  a  front  seat.  There 
was  none  to  be  had.  Just  then  I  arrived  and  with  an  extra  press 
ticket  in  my  pocket  invited  Jack  to  be  my  guest.  He  accepted  and 
we  occupied  ringside  seats. 

"On  the  card  this  night  there  was  one  fighter  called  'The  Rat.' 
I  never  knew  him  by  any  other  name.  I  knew  '  The  Rat '  to  be  an 
Italian  huckster.  ...  To  me  he  was  a  fifth-rate  fighter,  lacking 
brains  to  be  anything  better.  But  Jack  became  enthusiastic : 

"  'What  a  beauty,'  he  remarked. 

"  'That's  'The  Rat,'  I  answered. 

"  'A  beauty,'  he  resumed,  enthusiastically.     'A  perfect  speci- 


EETUEN  FROM  KOREA;  DIVORCE  15 

men.  Can't  you  see  it?  Beautifully  molded,  young,  full  of  life; 
the  cautious  tread  of  an  animal  and  perfect  symmetry  in  every 
limb." 

"As  a  matter  of  fact,  'The  Rat'  possessed  a  face  that  became 
a  fighter  accustomed  to  taking  the  short  end  of  the  purse.  He  was 
homely — his  face  was,  but  Jack  London  looked  and  saw  beauty  in 
the  perfection  of  his  naked  body.  To  me  he  was  '  The  Rat '  and  he 
was  homely ;  to  Jack  he  was  'a  beauty. '  He  had  seen  beauty  where 
I  had  missed  it.  Perhaps  that  is  one  of  the  secrets  of  his  success — 
his  ability  to  see  more  than  the  rest  of  us,  to  pick  out  the  beauty 
from  the  drab. 

' '  The  fight  over,  I  asked  Jack  to  write  me  a  brief  account  of  the 
show.  He  agreed,  but  his  150  or  200  words  were  about  'The  Rat/ 
His  story,  signed  'By  Jack  London,'  was  published  in  the  Oakland 
Herald.  The  one  story  led  to  others.  London  yearned  for  the 
ringside  seats,  not  because  of  any  ambition  to  be  '  up  in  front, '  but 
because  from  the  ringside  he  could  have  an  unobstructed  view  of 
the  ring,  could  watch  every  blow,  see  everything  that  took  place. 
And  so  we  made  a  deal,  I  to  supply  a  ringside  seat  for  each  show 
and  London  to  write  a  signed  story  regarding  the  show,  or  some 
feature  of  it.  This  continued  three  cr  four  months  and  the  Jack 
London  stories  became  big  features,  features  that  are  undoubtedly 
to-day  prized  by  many  old-time  fighters,  too  old  now  to  enter  the 
padded  arena,  but  proud  that  Jack  London  wrote  about  them. ' ' 

In  addition  to  all  else,  he  dashed  off  requested  ' '  stories ' ' 
for  The  Examiner,  one  of  which  was  ' '  The  Great  Socialist 
Vote  Explained" — a  similar  article  going  to  Wilshire's 
Magazine.  Many  an  evening  was  filled  with  a  reading  or 
a  lecture  at  this  club  and  that.  One  night  he  talked  at  the 
Home  Club  of  Oakland,  on  Japan ;  on  another,  he  spoke  at 
the  Nile  Club,  in  acknowledgment  of  an  honorary  member 
ship;  he  read  to  the  New  Era  Club,  the  men's  league  of  the 
Methodist  Church,  from  "The  People  of  the  Abyss ";  "The 
Call  of  the  Wild"  of  course  was  often  asked  for;  and 
whenever  Mr.  Bamford  sent  out  invitations  to  a  Ruskin 
Club  dinner,  Jack  was  expected  to  be  on  the  program.  At 
one  dinner  he  gave  them  ' '  The  Class  Struggle, ' '  and  again 


16       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

"The  Scab."  Both  these  papers  were  later  collected  in 
"War  of  the  Classes/'  proof-sheets  of  which  in  the  spring 
he  sent  me  for  correction.  In  among  Jack's  correspondence 
with  me  is  laid  away  a  little  handwritten  sheet  from  which 
he  made  a  statement  to  the  Ruskin  Club  of  his  Socialistic 
position : 

1  'I  am  a  socialist,  first,  because  I  was  born  a  proletarian 
and  early  discovered  that  for  the  proletariat  socialism  was  the  only 
way  out ;  second,  ceasing  to  be  a  proletarian  and  becoming  a  para 
site  (an  artist  parasite,  if  you  please),  I  discovered  that  socialism 
was  the  only  way  out  for  art  and  the  artist. ' ' 

The  Buskin  Club  several  times  mentioned  was  composed 
of  what  might  be  termed  the  intellectual  aristocracy  of  the 
socialists  about  the  Bay.  Its  father  and  moving  spirit  was 
Professor  Frederick  Irons  Bamford,  "the  lion-hearted 
one,"  Jack  lovingly  called  him,  for  despite  an  agonizingly 
supersensitive  nature  he  was  made  of  the  stuff  of  martyrs. 
And  to  Comrade  Lyon  Jack  one  evening  observed :  ' l  Bam 
ford  is  the  only  man  in  the  Euskin  Club  who  makes  me  feel 
small."  The  Club  would  meet  here  and  there,  at  irregular 
intervals,  say  at  Piedmont  Park  Clubhouse,  or  the  Hotel 
Metropole  of  "Martin  Eden"  fame.  Notable  were  these 
affairs,  often  in  honor  of  big  men  in  the  movement,  as  well 
as  in  honor  of  men  whom  the  Club  strove  to  convert  to  its 
banner. 

He  would  even  go  out  of  the  Bay  region  to  lecture,  per 
haps  to  San  Jose  where,  as  guest  of  Professor  Henry  Meade 
Bland,  he  addressed  the  State  Normal;  or  to  Vallejo  where 
ashore  from  the  Spray  he  had  made  friends ;  once  or  twice 
to  Stockton,  making  headquarters  with  Johannes  Eeimers. 
One  of  Mr.  Eeimers '  sons  found  himself  abruptly  unpopular 
with  his  teachers  because  of  his  father's  firebrand  socialist 
guest;  a  circumstance  in  which  Jack's  quick  natural  regret 
was  tempered  by  the  reflection :  1 1  That  young  fellow  is  the 
stuff  that  opposition  will  make  a  man  of!" 


EETUEN  FROM  KOREA;  DIVORCE  17 

Perhaps  I  have  not  mentioned  that  Jack  never  attended 
any  lectures  except  his  own.  "I  do  not  waste  my  time 
listening  to  lectures,"  he  put  it.  "I'd  rather  read.  I  get 
more  for  myself,  without  the  personality  of  the  speaker 
coming  between.  And  I  cover  more  ground."  The  fol 
lowing,  from  another's  pen,  seems  to  expess  what  Jack 
meant :  "To  attend  a  motion  picture  play  is  to  be  primi 
tive  ;  to  listen  to  an  orator  is  to  be  a  cave  man ;  to  read  is  to 
be  civilized!" 

In  a  vast  ledger,  clipping-book  of  1904,  pasted  by  his 
children's  mother  and  Eliza  Shepard,  I  find  several  humor 
ous  newspaper  squibs  upon  Jack's  being  made  a  member 
of  the  Bohemian  Club  despite  his  soft-collared  silk  shirt 
and  other  ineradicable  preferences.  Indeed,  this  was 
not  the  first  capitulation  of  clubdom  to  his  apparel. 
And  the  press  was  often  the  reverse  of  reliable,  as  in  the 
case  of  a  certain  affair  in  Jack's  honor  given  by  the  ex 
clusive  feminine  Ebell  Club  of  Oakland,  when,  it  is  to  this 
day  firmly  believed  by  newspaper  readers,  he  lectured  in  a 
red  flannel  shirt.  I  have  Jack's  word  that  outside  of  those 
brilliant  Klondike  undergarments,  and  possibly  while 
stoking  a  steamship  passage,  never  in  his  whole  existence 
did  he  affect  scarlet  flannel.  When  he  did  don  woolens  at 
all,  as  say  at  sea,  it  was  of  navy-blue.  Even  his  trusty 
sweater,  though  as  described  in  my  Prologue  he  early  wore 
it  in  making  social  calls  on  his  bicycle,  never  appeared  upon 
the  platform.  A  white,  soft  shirt,  with  flowing  tie,  worn 
with  a  black,  sack-coated  suit,  was  his  evening  dress. 

Handling  the  item  of  Jack  London's  entrance  into  the 
Bohemian  Club,  one  San  Francisco  sheet,  The  Wasp, 
avoided  the  humorous  note  to  such  a  virulent  extent  as  ta 
defeat  its  ends.  Being  by  all  counts  the  most  venomous 
slam  in  all  the  scrapbooks,  it  is  too  comical  not  to  quote  en 
tire — especially  in  view  of  the  fact  that  at  about  the  date  of 
its  publication  a  portion  of  "The  Call  of  the  Wild"  had 
been  incorporated  into  a  text-book  on  English  used  in  the 


18       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

University  of  California,  forerunner  of  others  of  his  books 
to  be  adjudged  " classics "  by  that  institution: 

"Jack  London's  8hirt  Vindicated. 

1  '  The  Bohemian  Club  has  relented  toward  Jack  London 's  negli 
gee  shirt  and  taken  the  novelist  into  membership — honorary  mem 
bership  at  that.  Why  honorary,  I  cannot  say.  Certainly,  it  is  not 
on  the  strength  of  Mr.  London's  'The  Call  of  the  Wild/  which  de 
serves  to  take  rank  as  an  average  Sunday  supplement  story  in  a 
yellow  newspaper.  Neither  can  it  be  his  '  Sea  Wolf '  that  has  raised 
him  into  a  niche  in  the  Bohemian  Temple  of  Honor  beside  Charles 
Warren  Stoddard,  Henry  Irving,  and  Joaquin  Miller.  The  Wasp 
would  be  only  too  glad  to  help  in  placing  laurels  on  the  brow  of 
Mr.  London  if  he  deserved  them,  but  he  must  furnish  better  evi 
dence  of  his  literary  quality  before  this  journal  will  assist  in  dec 
orating  him.  The  Wasp  decorates  as  masters  no-  apprentices  whose 
work  is  more  conspicuous  for  its  blemishes  than  its  finish.  I  have 
said  that  Mr.  Jack  London's  'Call  of  the  Wild'  belongs  to  the 
Sunday  supplement  order.  His  'Sea  Wolf  is  better  adapted  as  a 
serial  for  the  Coast  Seamen's  Journal  and  the  habitues  of  the 
'Fair  Wind'  and  the  'Blue  Anchor'  saloons  on  the  city  front  than 
for  the  shelves  of  libraries  or  the  tables  of  reading  rooms  frequented 
by  people  of  even  superficial  culture.  It  lacks  every  essential  of  a 
thoroughly  good  novel  except  nice  binding,  careful  printing,  and 
excellent  illustrations.  The  best  that  can  be  said  of  it  is  that  it 
is  a  poor  and  clumsy  imitation  of  the  new  Russian  school  of  tramp 
literature,  which  has  given  to  the  world  a  series  of  novels  dealing 
with  the  scum  of  humanity,  with  brutal  frankness.  When  one  has 
waded  through  '  The  Sea  Wolf '  by  a  laborious  effort  the  conviction 
is  irresistible  that  the  author  shows  more  fitness  for  the  post  of 
second  mate  of  a  whaler  than  a  leader  of  the  great  army  of  imagina 
tive  scribblers." 

While  on  the  theme,  I  might  say  in  passing  that  Jack 
London  was  not  at  any  period  a  zealous  clubman.  He  be 
longed  to  no  large  club  bodies  otherwise  than  the  Bohemian ; 
and  the  famous  rooms  in  San  Francisco  saw  him  little  and 
at  prolonged  intervals,  when  he  chanced  to  be  in  the  neigh 
borhood  for  some  other  purpose.  After  the  Great  Earth- 


RETURN  FROM  KOREA;  DIVORCE  19 

quake  and  Fire,  the  new  clubrooms  and  the  Sultan  Turkish 
Baths  were  rebuilt  in  close  proximity.  We  often,  Jack  and 
I,  finished  off  a  theater  night  at  the  Baths,  but  first  he 
would  drop  in  at  the  Club  for  poker  or  pedro  or  bridge,  and 
I  can  still  hear  his  drowsy-happy  voice  over  the  Baths  tele 
phone  from  the  men's  floor,  telling  me  of  his  luck — for  the 
voice  was  sure  to  be  happy  from  his  pleasure  in  the  game, 
be  luck  good  or  ill.  And  whenever  feasible,  our  world-wan 
derings  led  homeward  in  midsummer,  that  he  might  spend 
at  least  one  week  of  High  Jinks  at  Bohemian  Grove,  sit 
uated  but  a  few  miles  from  the  Ranch.  For  he  dreaded  fore 
going  the  marvelous  annual  Grove  Play,  words  and  music, 
acting  and  staging,  all  done  by  members  of  the  Club  only. 

January,  1905,  was  an  especially  full  month.  The  first 
week  saw  Jack  in  Los  Angeles,  visiting  Cloudesley  Johns 
in  the  quaint  rambling  home  at  500  North  Soto  Street,  where 
he  reveled  in  the  companionship  of  his  friend's  family. 
The  grandmother,  Mrs.  Rebecca  Spring,  was  Jack's  par 
ticular  joy.  She  was  one  of  California's  most  remarkable 
women,  friend  of  Margaret  Fuller,  Emerson,  Holmes,  Long 
fellow;  and  she  subsequently  died  in  dissatisfaction  with 
Life,  because  Life  cheated  her  by  a  few  short  weeks  of  at 
taining  her  centenary. 

He  also  visited  the  Mathers  in  Pasadena,  for  the 
daughter  of  the  house,  Miss  Katherine,  had  been  a  fel 
low  passenger  on  the  Siberia  to  Japan.  And  of  course  he 
attended  the  yearly  winter  Rose  Carnival  of  her  city.  This 
vacation,  like  his  life  in  Oakland,  was  without  repose  of 
spirit  or  body — rush,  rush  from  daybreak  to  even-fall,  and 
for  the  best  hours  of  the  night.  While  in  Los  Angeles,  he 
spoke  for  the  Socialists,  who  rented  the  Simpson  Auditor 
ium  for  the  occasion.  Miss  Constance  L.  Skinner,  poet 
and  historian,  another  member  of  the  Johns'  fascinat 
ing  household,  who  evoked  Jack's  admiration  and  regard, 
ably  reported  the  lecture,  which  was  on  the  subject  of  "Rev- 


20       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

olution, ' '  for  the  Los  Angeles  Examiner.  Strangely  enough, 
the  radicals  of  the  * l  City  of  Angels, ' '  when  publishing  their 
favorite  picture  of  Jack,  replaced  the  sweater  by  a  formal 
suit  and  collar,  drawn  quite  to  order,  beneath  which  Jack 
scratched  a  disgusted  comment. 

His  introduction  at  that  meeting  was  not  to  his  liking, 
according  to  his  comrade  J.  B.  Osborne,  of  Oakland :  i  l  The 
Chairman  introduced  him  as  a  ripe  scholar,  a  profound 
philosopher,  a  literary  genius  and  the  foremost  man  of  let 
ters  in  America.  .  .  .  When  London  arose,  dressed  in  good 
clothes  but  wearing  a  soft  shirt,  he  said : 

" Comrade  Chairman  and  Fellow  Workers:  I  was  not 
flattered  by  all  the  encomiums  heaped  upon  me  by  the  chair 
man,  for  the  reason  that  before  people  had  given  me  any 
of  these  titles  which  the  chairman  so  lavishly  credits  me,  I 
was  working  in  a  cannery,  a  pickle  factory,  had  my  applica 
tion  in  with  Murray  and  Ready  for  common  labor,  was  a 
sailor  before  the  mast,  and  worked  months  at  a  time  looking 
for  work  in  the  ranks  of  the  unemployed ;  and  it  is  the  pro 
letarian  side  of  my  life  that  I  revere  the  most  and  to  which 
I  will  cling  as  long  as  I  live." 

Once  more  in  his  home  town,  Jack  set  others  than  the 
County  of  Alameda  by  the  ears  by  consenting  to  an  oft- 
repeated  request  from  the  President  of  the  University  of 
California,  Dr.  Benjamin  Ide  Wheeler  (in  1919,  Emeritus), 
to  address  the  students  in  Harmon  Gymnasium.  And 
"choose  your  own  subject — anything  at  all,"  Jack  was  left 
to  consult  his  fancy.  Now  was  his  big  chance  to  let  loose  a 
thunderbolt  in  the  sacred  groves,  and  he  armed  for  the 
fray. 

The  day  was  the  20th  of  January.  Humming  across  the 
campus  from  North  Berkeley  in  the  morning  sunlight, 
fresh  from  an  hour  with  my  piano  teacher,  Mrs.  Fred  Gut- 
terson,  herself  pupil  of  Bauer  and  Leschetizsky  and  Car- 
reno,  I  turned  westerly  toward  the  "Gym"  where  I  had 


RETURN  FROM  KOREA;  DIVORCE  21 

danced  so  many  an  evening  away.  And  who  should 
come  stepping  along  with  a  smile  in  his  eyes  but  our  young 
friend,  who  explained  that  he  had  come  out  early  in  order 
to  think  quietly  upon  what  he  was  going  to  say  and  how 
he  was  going  to  say  it. 

At  the  entrance  we  parted,  I  to  become  one  of  the  several 
thousand,  students  and  citizens,  who  packed  the  huge  elon 
gated  octagon,  Jack  London  to  take  his  seat  with  the 
faculty  convened  upon  the  platform.  President  Wheeler 
presented  the  speaker,  and  the  speaker  went  into  action 
without  preamble,  head  high,  eyes  grave  and  dark,  voice 
challenging  as  he  rapped  out  the  short  crisp  sentences : 

"I  received  a  letter  the  other  day.  It  was  from  a  man 
in  Arizona,  It  began,  'Dear  Comrade.'  It  ended,  *  Yours 
for  the  Revolution.'  I  replied  to  the  letter,  and  my  letter 
began,  'Dear  Comrade.'  It  ended  'Yours  for  the  Revolu 
tion.'  " 

The  house  thereupon  settled  to  listen  spellbound  to  the 
strangest  statement  of  facts  and  opinions  ever  enunciated 
within  the  college  walls.  Dr.  Wheeler,  conventional  em 
bodiment  of  what  by  all  tradition  the  head  of  a  great  uni 
versity  should  be,  sat  aghast  at  what  he  had  done.  But  it 
must  be  said  that  he  was  game;  for  when  Jack,  on  the 
stroke  of  noon,  realizing  he  was  over  his  time,  paused  on 
tiptoe  and  asked,  "Shall  I  stop?"  the  President  came  back 
hurriedly  and  with  perfect  courtesy:  "No,  go  on — go  on." 

The  last  words  of  unequivocal  indictment  of  so 
ciety's  mismanagement  of  society  rang  out  clear  from 
the  upraised  young  face  that  had  been  imperially  stern 
throughout,  "The  revolution  is  here,  now.  Stop  it  who 
can!"  The  audience,  from  whatever  mixture  of  emotions, 
resounded  in  mighty  applause.  This  was  followed  by  a 
rouse  from  the  Glee  Club,  composed  for  the  renowned  ex- 
student  of  the  college.  Meanwhile  the  faculty  crowded 
about  him,  some  in  protest,  some  in  curiosity,  all  with  keen 
interest  from  one  motive  or  another. 


22       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

One  humorous  incident  crept  in:  Jack  in  the  course 
of  his  indictment  had  attacked  the  antiquated  meth 
ods  common  to  institutions  of  learning.  When  he  stepped 
from  the  rostrum,  according  to  one  who  stood  near,  "  Pro 
fessor  Charles  Mills  Gayley  greeted  him  and  congratulated 
him  upon  his  literary  success.  The  author  during  their  con 
versation  reiterated  his  opinion  of  the  deficiencies  in  teach 
ing  methods.  He  said : 

"  'Dr.  Gayley,  permit  me  to  make  the  criticism  that 
English  is  not  being  taught  in  the  right  way.  You  are 
giving  the  students  for  their  textbooks  such  antiquated 
authors  as  Macaulay,  Emerson  and  others  of  the  same 
school.  What  you  need  in  your  course  is  a  few  of  the  more 
modern  types  of  literature ' 

"Here  Dr.  Gayley  interrupted  with  a  dry  smile: 

«  <  Perhaps  you  are  not  aware,  Mr.  London,  that  we  are 
using  your  own  "Call  of  the  Wild"  as  a  textbook  in  the 
University  r  " 

Jack  surrendered,  laughing  with  the  others. 

The  evening  papers  and  their  morning  associates  treated 
the  lecture  with  unexpected  leniency.  But  when  the  press 
in  general  (Jack  meantime  repeating  the  speech  at  every 
opportunity)  had  had  time  to  catch  its  breath,  there  was 
nothing  too  vicious  nor  unfair  that  could  be  printed  of  his 
utterances.  There  were  exceptions,  to  be  sure,  the  Oakland 
Tribune  being  one  of  those  which  remained  loyal  to  "our 
own  Jack."  But  the  majority  deliberately  distorted  his 
words,  and  robbed  of  its  context  the  quoted  phrase  "To 
Hell  with  the  Constitution " — notorious  exclamation  made 
by  Sherman  Bell,  when  that  capitalistic  leader  of  troops 
for  the  employers  in  Colorado,  during  the  recent  scandalous 
labor  war  that  had  raged  there,  was  reproved  for  riding 
roughshod  over  the  Constitution.  Jack  was  held  up  as  a 
dangerous  anarchist — the  same  platitudinous  old  charge  of 
the  capitalist  press  against  the  socialist.  And  carefully 
editors  refrained  from  embodying  in  their  columns  the 


EETUEN  FROM  KOREA;  DIVORCE  23 

statement  that  the  social  revolution  was,  as  announced  by 
the  speaker,  "to  be  fought,  not  with  bombs,  but  with  votes. " 
Nor  did  President  Wheeler  escape  his  share  of  criti 
cism  for  having  allowed  so  incendiary  a  character  to  sully 
the  choice  air  of  Berkeley.  Again  he  was  game,  if  a  little 
condescending  as  befitted  the  dignity  of  his  years  and  posi 
tion,  and  the  closing  sentence  in  this  excerpt  from  his  letter 
to  The  Argonaut  held  him  inviolate  as  concerned  misappre 
hension  of  his  own  views : 

"I  think  you  ought  to  know  that  we  never  stipulate  or  inquire 
concerning  the  subject  a  speaker  is  to  discuss  at  such  a  meeting. 
We  intend  to  ask  only  such  to  speak  as  have  by  achievement  earned 
the  personal  right  to  be  heard.  We  seek  the  man  and  not  the  sub 
ject.  I  conceive  it  to  be  of  highest  value  for  students  to  meet  and 
hear  men  who  have  honorably  wrought  and  done  in  various  fields. 
I  introduce  them  to  the  students,  and  rarely,  if  ever,  mention  any 
subject.  Jack  London  is  a  former  student  of  the  university,  and 
has  surely  won  an  honorable  distinction  in  the  field  of  letters.  And, 
after  all,  is  it  best  for  us  to  start  an  Index  of  tabooed  subjects? 
One  way  to  deal  with  a  hard  boiling  tea-kettle  is  to  take  off  the  lid." 

One  paper,  however,  noted  that  Jack  London,  socialist, 
affected  illustrious  company,  naming  amongst  others,  H.  G. 
Wells  and  George  Bernard  Shaw. 

Some  of  the  students  of  the  old  Oakland  High  wanted 
Jack  to  lecture,  but  promptly  went  up  against  the  bars  shut 
by  Superintendent  of  Schools  McClymonds  and  Principal 
Pond.  Also,  was  he  not  a  divorced  man,  inimical  to  the 
sanctity  of  hearth  and  home?  How  pitifully  trivial  and 
pettish  all  this  hullabaloo  of  little  editors'  squeaks  amidst 
the  slashing,  smashing  events  following  the  World  War! 

On  the  29th  of  January  Jack  read  "The  Tramp "— an 
other  "War  of  the  Classes"  article,  at  Socialist  Headquar 
ters  in  Oakland.  And  a  few  weeks  afterward  I  wrote  him : 

*  *  Probably  you  already  know  it,  but  I  '11  repeat  it  anyway — that 
following  your  lecture  at  the  University  a  few  of  the  students 


24       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

organized  a  socialist  club.  This  was  announced  at  the  Ruskin  Club 
dinner  last  Friday  evening.  I  know  it  will  please  you — I  remem 
ber  what  you  said  to  me  the  day  of  your  lecture :  that  you  would  be 
satisfied  if  perhaps  only  a  half  dozen  of  the  students  were  im 
pressed.'' 

This  club  was  the  nucleus  of  the  subsequent  Intercol 
legiate  Socialist  Society,  of  which  Jack  London  was  elected 
the  first  President. 

Near  the  end  of  January,  he  went  one  evening  to  see 
Blanche  Bates  at  the  Macdonough  Theatre  in  Oakland,  in 
' '  The  Darling  of  the  Gods. ' '  Turning  over  in  his  mind  the 
suitability  of  Miss  Bates  to  the  character  of  Freda  Moloof 
in  his  own  play  "  Scorn  of  Women, "  he  attended  three  con 
secutive  performances  from  front-row  vantage,  the  eager- 
eyed  boy  studying  the  young  star  carefully  to  this  end.  And 
naturally,  by  the  time  he  had  schemed  an  introduction, 
called  upon  her  at  the  Hotel  Metropole,  and  given  a  dinner 
in  her  honor,  the  papers  had  blazoned  their  plighted  troth — 
the  vigorous  denials  of  both  parties  rendering  new  head 
lines  in  the  next  issues,  and  causing  no  end  of  mirth  to  the 
pair  as  well  as  the  public. 

It  was  not  until  the  first  week  in  February,  1905,  that 
Jack  and  Cloudesley  got  the  Spray  up-river.  Just  be 
fore  sailing  from  Oakland  City  Wharf,  Jack  accepted  the 
socialist  nomination  for  Mayor  of  Oakland.  On  the  same 
ticket  were  Austin  Lewis  for  City  Attorney,  with  J.  B. 
Osborne  councilman  for  third  ward.  And  who  should  be 
nominee  for  Mayor  on  the  Independent  Ticket,  but  John 
London's  old  friend  John  L.  Davie?  On  the  morning  of 
election,  one  local  sheet  had  it:  "All  the  nominees  for 
Mayor,  with  the  exception  of  Jack  London,  socialist  can 
didate,  were  conspicuous  about  the  polls. ' '  And  Jack  polled 
981  votes  at  that.  Knowing  how  personally  distasteful  the 
holding  of  public  office  would  be  to  him,  I  once  asked: 


RETURN  FROM  KOREA;  DIVORCE  25 

"What  would  you  do  if  you  should  accidentally  be  elected 
to  some  of  these  political  positions  you  let  yourself  in  for?" 

" There 's  not  the  least  chance,  my  dear,"  he  replied; 
then  realizing  he  had  not  answered  my  question,  he  laughed, 
"I  wouldn't  let  my  name  be  used  if  I  thought  there  was  the 
slightest  possibility  of  winning.  If  I  did  by  chance  get 
elected,  I  guess  I'd  run  away  to  sea  or  somewhere  with 
you!" 

Meantime,  I  had  taken  to  my  room  with  an  abscess  in 
the  left  ear,  made  doubly  torturing  by  neuralgia.  For  it  is 
a  nipping  winter  one  may  experience  on  Sonoma  Mountain. 
The  trouble  was  assumably  due  to  long  hours  swimming 
and  diving  in  the  Oakland  baths  on  cold  days,  and  more 
especially  a  certain  oft-repeated,  twenty-two-foot  jump  in 
which  Jack  had  coached  me.  Such  an  anomaly  as  un- 
health  on  the  part  of  "the  Cheery  One,"  as  he  liked  to  call 
me,  was  sufficient  to  make  Jack  desert  the  sloop  somewhere 
along  Petaluma  Creek,  leaving  his  friend  and  Manyoungi 
aboard,  and  footing  it  to  the  nearest  railway  for  Glen  Ellen. 
Reaching  Wake  Robin  Lodge  after  nightfall,  he  stood  for 
long  contemplative  minutes  at  the  low  casement  of  the  red- 
wooded  living  room,  gazing  in  at  the  unwonted  spectacle  of 
said  Cheery  One  supine  upon  a  couch,  her  head  swathed  in 
warm  bandages. 

Two  days  he  remained,  reading  aloud  to  me  by  the  hour ; 
and  I  can  vouch  that  no  one  ever  knew  tenderer  nurse.  So 
improved  was  I  that  on  the  second  evening  I  rose  hungry 
for  the  first  time  in  weeks,  and  joined  my  nurse  in  a 
stealthy  raid  upon  Auntie's  sweet-smelling  pantry.  Re 
turning  to  the  big  fireplace  with  our  spoils  of  honey  and 
biscuits  and  sun-dried  figs,  we  feasted  and  giggled  like 
truant  schoolfellows.  Truly,  in  our  long  years  together, 
so  few  are  the  memories  of  irresponsible  tranquil  hiatuses 
in  Jack's  driven  habit,  that  they  stand  forth  in  relief  ap 
parently  out  of  all  proportion  to  their  importance.  Not 
so,  however;  they  showed  him  capable  of  the  purest  en- 


26       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

joyment  of  that  sheer  nonsense  which  relaxes  a  brain  ordi 
narily  over-conscious. 

I  recall  an  uproarious  afternoon  a  few  months  later, 
when  we  two  spent  hours  in  a  hammock  under  the  laurels, 
doing  nothing  more  profitable  than  manufacturing  the  most 
absurdly  banal  of  limericks.  Again,  years  afterward, 
I  see  in  memory  the  twain  of  us,  replete  with  picnic  luncheon 
and  good  nature,  prone  upon  the  green  outer  declivity  of 
a  fern-lined  crater  in  Hawaii  euphoniously  styled  Puuhuu- 
luhulu.  We  peered  over-edge  into  the  giddy  emerald  cup 
and  planned,  in  very  extravagance  of  lazy  foolishness,  all 
the  details  of  a  country  home  in  the  pit,  even  to  an  adjust 
able  glass  roof  against  tropic  showers ! 

Pain  and  house-confinement  were  happily  mitigated 
by  Jack's  sympathy,  both  during  his  visit  and  thereafter, 
when  such  notes  as  these  drifted  to  me  from  the  Spray's 
pleasant  course  up  the  Sacramento  river : 

"Rio  Vista,  Feb.  10,  1905. 

"I  think  continually  of  you,  lying  there  through  the  long  days 
and  longer  nights,  and  I  look  forward  almost  as  keenly  as  you,  I 
am  sure,  for  the  blessed  time  when  you  will  be  up  and  around  and 
your  old  self  again. 

"Got  here  last  night.  The  river  is  booming.  Flood  tide  is  not 
felt  at  all.  Current  runs  down  all  the  time.  Expect  to  go  to 
Walnut  Grove  and  then  down  through  Georgiana  Slough  to  the 
San  Joaquin  and  up  to  Stockton." 

"Rio  Vista,  Feb.  11,  1905. 

"Your  short  note  just  received.  I  am  haunted  right  along  by 
seeing  you  lying  there,  the  bandage  around  your  head  and  the 
cloth  over  your  eyes.  I  do  so  look  for  improvement,  and  yet  the 
north  wind  is  blowing  to-day  which  is  bad  for  you.  Do  let  me 
know  every  bit  of  improvement  as  soon  as  it  comes. 

"I  have  nothing  to  write  in  the  way  of  news.  Am  working 
hard.  Did  1000  words  to-day.  We  have  been  here  two  days  now, 
and  I  have  not  yet  been  ashore,  though  the  town  is  interested  in 
my  existence.  Have  already  3  invitations  to  dinner,  etc.,  and  a 


EETUEN  FROM  KOREA;  DIVORCE  27 

launch  is  expected  off  in  a  few  minutes  with  admirers  ( !).    Also, 
Brown  came  aboard  with  a  bunch  of  violets  in  his  collar,  sent,  so 
Cloudesley  avers,  by  the  prettiest  girl  in  California. 
"Guess  111  take  up  one  dinner  invite  to-night." 

This  mention  of  Brown  calls  to  mind  that  Jack  had 
become  unexpectedly  possessed  of  "twa  dogs,"  one,  a  valu 
able  lost  Chow  who  presented  himself  at  the  front  door,  and 
tarried  entirely  at  home  for  some  weeks,  when  his  rightful 
owner  was  discovered.  The  other  was  an  Alaskan  wolf- 
dog,  a  true  " husky,"  brown-and-white  of  furry  coat  and 
fine  of  brush,  with  slant,  watchful  eyes  and  pointed  ears, 
and  a  limp  in  the  off  hind-leg  that  was  eloquent  of  sled  and 
trail.  His  master,  an  old  Klondiker,  had  lately  died;  and 
though  strangers  to  Jack  London,  the  relatives  asked  him 
if  he  would  accept  " Brown."  Jack  was  willing,  but  the 
animal  had  other  views,  and  sought  every  loophole  to 
escape  from  the  little  yard  at  the  rear  of  the  flat  (which 
sometimes  was  the  ring  for  spirited  bouts  with  the  gloves), 
or  from  the  front  door  when  he  was  entertained  within, 
to  return  to  his  loved  one's  house.  Jack,  after  trying 
every  cajolement  to  win  him  over,  and  going  himself  or 
sending  his  nephew  or  Manyoungi  countless  times  to  re 
trieve  the  estray,  swore  roundly  that  when  Brown  again 
ran  away  he  could  stay.  But  the  dog  had  been  making  his 
own  adjustment,  and  the  next  fruitless  pilgrimage  to  the 
old  home  was  his  last.  From  the  second  story  window  Jack 
saw  him  cantering  cheerfully  back,  and  bounded  downstairs 
to  welcome  him  right  comradely.  Thenceforth  Brown  at 
tached  himself  with  the  mute  adoration  of  a  soul  dis 
illusioned  of  all  else  in  the  world.  Mute?  Why,  that  dear 
lonely  dog-fellow  of  our  first  married  year  was  never  heard 
to  bark  except  upon  two  occasions  when  he  thought  Jack 
imperilled  by  a  fractious  horse.  One  day  in  the  summer 
I  asked : 


28       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

"Now,  what  do  you  suppose  Brown  Wolf  would  do,  if 
his  old  master  should  suddenly  pop  up  beside  you?" 

"A  story  right  there — don't  breathe  another  word  for  a 
minute, ' '  Jack  flashed  at  me,  scribbling  like  mad  on  a  note 
pad,  his  deep  mouth-corners  turned  up  pleasedly  with  the 
scent  of  a  new  motif.  The  tale  "Brown  Wolf,"  in 
collection  "Love  of  Life,"  was  the  sequel  of  the  incident. 
That  pleased  expression  recalls  that  always  when  lost  in 
his  morning's  work,  no  matter  how  reluctantly  begun,  there 
was  a  half -smile  lurking  about  his  lips  the  while  he  bent 
concentrated  over  the  broad  tablet  upon  which  the  inky-wet 
characters  sprawled  and  sprawled. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

"SPRAY"  CBTJISE;  GLEN  ELLEN  FROM  NAPA;  HOSPITAL;  SUMMER 

AT  GLEN  ELLEN 

1905 

THE  Spray's  ramblings  were  to  lead  aside  into  Napa 
River  to  the  pretty  city  of  the  same  name  that  lies  in 
the  next  inland  valley  to  Sonoma.  Here  Jack  was  to 
visit  the  Winships,  friends  made  on  the  voyage  to  Japan; 
and  he  sent  me  word  that  he  would  ride  across  the  hills  to 
spend  several  days  with  us  at  Wake  Robin  Lodge.  He  ar 
rived  on  February  12,  a  showery  Sunday,  astride  a  harass 
ing  livery  hack,  both  horse  and  horseman  much  the  worse 
for  the  twenty  miles.  Jack  wore  a  nerve-racked  look,  and 
my  Aunt  and  I  were  solicitous,  although  we  avoided  adver 
tising  the  same.  The  boy  was  in  veritable  distress,  never 
quiet  for  a  moment.  His  great-pupiled  eyes  were  haunted 
with  a  hopeless  weariness,  and  glassy  as  from  fever.  He 
talked  very  hard,  as  if  against  time,  or  in  fear  of  silence.  In 
the  evening,  as  we  clustered  about  the  fireplace,  my  Aunt 
asked : 

"Jack,  my  dear,  why  don't  you  get  out  of  the  city  for 
a  while,  bring  your  work,  and  Manyoungi  to  look  after  your 
wants,  take  a  little  cottage  here  and  rest  and  work  far 
away  from  excitement  and  people  ! ' 7 

The  eyes  he  raised  to  her  face  were  as  of  some  creature 
hunted.  He  shifted  uneasily,  almost  as  if  embarrassed,  and 
the  corners  of  his  mouth  drooped  like  a  child's  on  the  verge 
of  tears.  Yet  when  he  replied  it  was  with  a  tinge  of  im 
patience,  though  a  pitiful  tiredness  lay  under  the  tone : 

29 


30       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

" Oh,  Mother  Mine — thank  you.     .     .     You're  kind.     . 
But.     .     .     but  I  think  that  the  very  quiet  would  drive 
me  crazy. " 

It  was  a  wail  to  be  left  alone  in  his  impotence,  and  no 
further  reference  was  made  to  the  matter  until  the  night 
before  he  departed. 

The  only  recurrence  of  the  temperamental  joyance  that 
was  a  large  part  of  his  nature  was  when  he  related  the 
Spray's  experience.  For  no  sadness  of  soul  could  ever  rob 
Jack  London  of  his  native  delight  in  a  boat.  In  relation  to 
this  very  trip,  I  am  tempted  to  quote  from  "Small-Boat 
Sailing"  (in  "The  Human  Drift"): 

11  After  all,  the  mishaps  are  almost  the  best  part  of  small-boat 
sailing.  Looking  back,  they  prove  to  be  punctuations  of  joy. 
There  are  enough  surprises  and  mishaps  in  a  three-days'  cruise  in 
a  small  boat  to  supply  a  great  ship  on  the  ocean  for  a  full  year. 
I  remember  taking  out  a  little  thirty-footer  I  had  bought.  In  six 
days  we  had  two  stiff  blows,  and,  in  addition,  one  proper  south- 
wester  and  one  ripsnorting  southeaster.  The  slight  intervals  be 
tween  these  blows  were  dead  calms.  Also,  in  the  six  days,  we  were 
aground  three  times.  Then,  too,  we  tied  up  to  a  bank  on  the 
Sacramento  river,  and,  grounding  by  an  accident  on  the  steep  slope 
of  a  falling  tide,  nearly  turned  a  side  somersault  down  the  bank. 
In  a  stark  calm  and  a  heavy  tide  in  the  Carquinez  Straits,  where 
anchors  skate  on  the  channel-scoured  bottom,  we  were  sucked 
against  a  big  dock  and  smashed  and  bumped  down  a  quarter  of  a 
mile  of  its  length  before  we  could  get  clear.  Two  hours  afterward, 
on  San  Pablo  Bay,  the  wind  was  piping  up  and  we  were  reefing 
down.  It  is  no  fun  to  pick  up  a  skiff  adrift  in  a  heavy  sea  and  gale. 
That  was  our  next  task,  for  our  skiff,  swamping,  parted  both  tow 
ing  painters  we  had  bent  on.  Before  we  recovered  it  we  had  nearly 
killed  ourselves  with  exhaustion,  and  certainly  had  strained  the 
sloop  in  every  part  from  keelson  to  truck.  And  to  cap  it  all,  com 
ing  into  our  home  port,  beating  up  the  narrowest  part  of  the  San 
Antonio  Estuary,  we  had  a  shave  of  inches  from  collision  with  a 
big  ship  in  tow  of  a  tug." 


SUMMER  AT  GLEN  ELLEN  31 

Once,  during  his  five-days '  stay,  I  prevailed  upon  him  to 
walk  up  the  tree-embowered  mountain  road  that  skirts 
Graham  Creek;  but,  to  my  hidden  sorrow,  he  appeared  to 
have  grown  blind  to  the  beauty  he  had  so  loved.  His  tongue 
ran  on  and  on  incessantly — we  were  discussing  the  English 
poets.  It  was  an  exquisite  sunset  that  bathed  us  in  its 
waves  of  colored  light,  and  upon  a  green  eminence  I  halted 
Jack  and  his  speech  and  stretched  my  arm  toward  the  valley 
to  the  east,  welling  to  its  rosy  wall-summits  with  a  purple 
tide  of  shadow  from  the  mountain  on  which  we  stood.  To  an 
earnest  query  if  the  loveliness  of  the  world  meant  nothing 
to  him  any  more,  he  stilled  for  a  moment,  then  let  fall  very 
sadly: 

"I  don't  seem  to  care  for  anything — I'm  sick,  my  dear. 
It's  Nietzsche's  'Long  Sickness'  that  is  mine,  I  fear.  This 
doesn't  seem  to  be  what  I  want.  I  don't  know  what  I  want. 
Oh,  I'm  sorry — I  am,  I  am;  it  hurts  me  to  hurt  you  so.  But 
there 's  nothing  for  me  to  do  but  go  back  to  the  city.  I  don 't 
know  what  the  end  of  it  will  be." 

During  my  late  convalescence  at  Wake  Eobin,  slowly 
working  at  the  typing  and  word-counting  of  his  play, ' '  Scorn 
of  Women, "  and  brooding  not  a  little  over  his  mental  condi 
tion,  I  had  received  from  Jack  several  of  Nietzsche 's  books, 
of  which  he  had  written  me : 

' ' Have  been  getting  hold  of  some  of  Nietzsche.  I'll  turn 
you  loose  first  on  his  '  Genealogy  of  Morals ' — and  after  that, 
something  you'll  like — 'Thus  Spake  Zarathustra.'  " 

But  I  liked  them  all — "ate  them  up,"  as  he  said;  and 
after  digging  through  "Genealogy  of  Morals,"  "The  Case 
of  Wagner,"  "The  Antichrist,"  and  others,  I  polished  off 
with  "Zarathustra,"  which  just  happened  to  fill  a  need  and 
accomplished  more  than  any  tonic  to  clear  my  own  sur 
charged  mental  atmosphere  and  set  my  feet  on  the  road  to 
recovery.  Here  is  a  favorite  bit  I  quoted  to  Jack:  "At  the 
foot  of  my  height  I  dwell.  How  high  my  summits  are? 


32       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

How  high,  no  one  hath  yet  told  me.  But  well  I  know  my 
valleys. ' ' 

At  Jack's  side  upon  the  grassy  promontory  with  the 
west-wind  in  onr  hair,  I  called  attention  to  the  wholesome 
philosophy  of  Zarathustra.  In  return  I  was  reminded 
by  Jack  of  Nietzsche's  ultimate  fate.  Oh,  no — he  was  not 
"playing  to  the  gallery,"  nor  inviting  sympathy  to  his 
spiritual  dole.  That  was  not  his  custom ;  he  was  but  frankly, 
soul  to  soul,  letting  me  know  what  was  true  of  him  at  the 
time,  and  vouchsafing  a  glimpse  at  the  worst  symptom — his 
own  uncaring  attitude  concerning  it. 

On  the  eve  of  parting  I  played  my  last  stake — recurred 
to  my  Aunt's  suggestion,  picturing  the  sweetness  of  the 
spring  and  summer  he  might  pass  there  among  the  redwoods 
by  the  brook  that  once  had  soothed,  and  the  work  we  could 
accomplish.  But  the  warning  unrest  leaped  into  his  eyes 
and  voice  and  he  implored: 

"No,  no;  it  doesn't  seem  that  I  can.  I  could  not  stand 
the  quiet,  I  tell  you.  I  could  not.  It  would  make  me  mad. ' ' 

"Very  well,  then,"  I  gave  up,  with  my  best  cheer;  "the 
thing  for  you  is  to  do  what  you  feel  you  must,  of  course. — 
And  we  won't  say  any  more  about  it." 

He  started,  flushed,  turned  and  looked  at  me.  Beaching 
for  my  hand,  in  a  hushed,  changed  tone  that  meant  volumes, 
he  breathed: 

"Why — why — you're  a  woman  in  a  million!" 

That  night  he  slept  an  unbroken  eight  hours,  un 
precedented  repose  for  Jack  at  any  time,  and  for  many 
weeks  he  had  been  working  on  but  three  or  four  hours  night 
ly — sufficient  alone  to  account  for  his  sorry  plight. 

In  the  morning  I  offered  to  pilot  him  a  different  way 
from  the  one  he  had  come.  It  was  up  through  Nunn's  Can 
yon,  a  lovely  defile  out  of  Sonoma  Valley  to  the  east.  Jack 
appeared  pleased ;  in  fact  presented  a  much  brighter  aspect 
for  his  long  night  of  rest,  and  I  hoped  vainly  that  he  would 


if. 


1905.      "THE  SEA  WOLF1 


SUMMER  AT  GLEN  ELLEN  33 

have  reconsidered  the  matter  of  coming  to  Wake  Eobin  for 
the  season. 

Away  we  rode  together,  he  and  I,  one  of  us  with  a  heavy 
heart,  no  inkling  of  which  was  allowed  to  pass  eyes  and  lips. 
For  I  felt  this  was  the  last  of  Jack,  that  he  was  slipping 
irrecoverably  from  us  who  loved  and  would  have  helped 
him;  and,  what  was  more  grave,  slipping  away  from  him 
self.  Flesh  and  blood  and  brain  could  not  support  much 
longer  this  race  he  was  waging  against  the  sum  of  his  mental 
and  physical  vitality. 

But  a  charm  was  working  in  him,  although  I  think  he 
did  not  know  it.  The  morning  was  one  of  California 's  most 
blessed,  a  great  broken  blue-and-white  sky  showering  pris 
matic  jewels  and  sungold  alternately.  Even  the  jaded 
livery  hack  responded  to  the  brightness  as  he  vied  with  my 
golden  Belle  over  the  blossoming  floor  of  that  bird-singing 
vale  and  up  the  successive  rises  of  narrow  Nunn's  Canyon, 
where,  on  its  rustic  bridges,  we  crossed  and  recrossed  the 
serpentine  torrent  a  dozen  times. 

As  we  forged  skyward  on  the  ancient  road  that  lies  now 
against  one  bank,  now  another,  the  fanning  ferns  sprinkling 
our  faces  with  rain  and  dew,  wild-flowers  nodding  in  the 
cool  flaws  of  wind,  I  could  see  my  dear  man  quicken  and 
sparkle  as  if  in  spite  of  himself  and  the  powers  of  dark 
ness.  The  response  to  my  own  mood  in  the  earth's  en 
chantment,  which  had  been  so  lamentably  absent  from  him 
in  the  few  days  gone  by,  kept  mounting  and  bubbling  and 
presently  was  overflowing  in  the  full  measure  I  knew  so 
gloriously  of  him.  Truly,  as  the  summit  drew  near,  I  do 
believe  he  still  did  not  know  that  the  crisis  had  been  reached 
and  passed  in  his  Long  Sickness  for  which  the  mad  German 
philosopher  had  given  him  a  name,  and  that  he  had  staved 
off  despair  and  death  itself  for  many  a  splendid,  fruitful 
year  to  come. 

And  now,  could  I  credit  my  ears  ? — he  was  talking  quite 
naturally  with  his  old  engaging  enthusiasm,  as  if  pursuing 


34       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

an  uninterrupted  conversation  upon  his  intention  to  spend 
the  year  at  Wake  Eobin;  he  would  rearrange  the  interior 
of  the  tiny  shingled  cabin  under  the  laurels  and  oaks,  and 
ship  up  this  and  that  piece  of  f  runiture,  and  such  and  such 
books,  dwelling  upon  certain  of  these  he  wanted  to  read  to 
me.  What  fun  Manyoungi  would  have  getting  settled 
and  keeping  house ;  and  could  he,  Jack,  dictate  his  damned 
correspondence  to  me?  "And  say,  can  you,  do  you  suppose, 
find  me  a  good  horse?  All  the  riding  IVe  ever  done  was 
what  my  mare  Belle  taught  me  in  Manchuria,  and  I  know 
I'd  love  riding  if  I  had  another  horse  as  good.  IVe  got 
$350.00  for  the  Black  Cat  story — could  you  get  me  a  horse 
for  that?  .  .  .  How  I  wish  I'd  had  that  mare  sent  me  from 
Korea ! ' '  and  he  launched  into  reminiscence  of  her  virtues. 

Not  by  word  nor  look  did  I  treat  his  reviving  humor  as 
if  it  had  not  been  the  same  throughout  his  visit.  Now  was 
the  thing — he  had  come  over  and  out  by  some  sweet  miracle, 
I  cared  not  what,  from  his  valley  of  the  shadow.  Far  be  it 
from  me  to  disturb  the  ferment  of  the  magic.  Out  of  a 
pleasant,  sunny  silence  as  we  climbed  the  grade,  Jack 
suddenly  reined  in  and  laid  his  hand  upon  my  shoulder.  It 
was  one  of  the  supreme  moments  of  my  life.  I  met  a  look 
deeper  than  thankfulness,  and  in  my  heart  for  ay  will  abide 
his  voice  from  the  mouth  that  was  like  a  child's  surprised 
in  emotion: 

"You  did  it  all,  my  Mate  Woman.  You've  pulled  me 
out.  You've  rested  me  so.  And  rest  was  what  I  needed — 
you  were  right.  Something  wonderful  has  happened  to  me. 
I  am  all  right  now.  Dear  My  Woman,  you  need  not  be 
afraid  for  me  any  more." 

My  face  must  have  answered,  for  I  know  I  said  no  word. 
Solemnly  at  the  green  height  of  the  pass,  we  clasped  hands 
and  kissed  good-by,  solemnly,  joyfully,  all  in  one.  And 
there  was  that  in  his  eyes  which  brought  tears  to  mine.  But 
it  was  the  happy  rain  of  a  new  day,  for  me,  for  him,  and 
my  heart  for  one  ached  with  the  joy  of  it.  Loath  to  part, 


SUMMER  AT  GLEN  ELLEN  35 

Jack  broke  out:  "Why  not  come  on  the  rest  of  the  way1? 
No,  never  mind  that  you're  not  fixed  up — the  Winships  are 
good  sports  and  will  welcome  you  with  open  arms." 

Long  we  waved  and  waved  until  a  descending  bend  into 
the  hinterland  buried  him  from  sight,  and  I  turned  and  re 
traced  the  royal  road  we  had  come  together,  hardly  able  to 
contain  myself.  Years  thence,  the  Winships  and  Cloudeslev 
told  me  that  another  man  than  the  Jack  who  had  left  them 
five  days,  rode  in  that  afternoon  on  the  same  dispirited 
steed.  But  Cloudesley  knew;  once  they  were  aboard  the 
Spray  he  was  told  of  the  miracle. 

Winding  up  his  voyage  mid-March  in  Oakland,  Jack 
discovered  through  Dr.  Nicholson  that  he  was  suffering 
from  a  tumor  consequent  upon  an  old  injury  he  had  thought 
of  little  moment,  and  which  should  be  removed  as  soon  as 
he  could  be  put  in  proper  condition.  The  red-cheeked 
physician  had  him  to  bed  at  the  flat,  on  a  diet,  and  "no 
cigarettes,  young  man,  for  a  week."  The  "young  man" 
compromised,  of  course — or  was  it  the  practitioner  who 
compromised? 

I  bought  a  rose-pink  lawn  frock  for  his  pleasure,  and 
went  daily  to  help  a  very  gay  patient  with  his  piled  up  cor 
respondence,  dictated  from  high  pillows.  After  the 
operation,  when  I  called  at  the  hospital,  Jack  told  me  he 
was  greatly  relieved  by  the  report  that  his  tumor  had  been 
pronounced  non-malignant,  and  the  assurance  there  would 
be  no  relapse — an  opinion  that  time  corroborated.  "I  won 
der,"  the  bedridden  philosopher  speculated  with  a  half- 
abashed  grin,  "how  much  of  my  intellectual  'Long  Sick 
ness  '  could  have  been  traceable  to  this  damned  thing  drain 
ing  my  system?"  Then  suddenly  grave,  he  rejoined:  "No, 
my  dear — I  won't  belittle  the  real  diagnosis.  I  know,  and 
you  know,  that  when  the  sudden  healing  of  that  malady 
took  place,  it  was  before  I  even  knew  I  had  a  physical  ail 
ment.  .  .  .  My  dear,  my  dear." 

Back  at  the  little  flat,  he  resumed  his  dictations,  and 


36       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

our  readings  progressed.  During  these  days  Jack  made 
the  better  acquaintance  of  Tennyson,  and,  for  the  first 
time,  "Idylls  of  the  King,*'  never  ceasing  to  mourn  that 
he  had  not  "grown  up  with  them"  and  their  pure  glamour 
of  poesy.  "And  I  never  knew  the  gnomes  and  fairies  as 
you  did,  either,  to  my  loss,"  he  regretted. 

With  boyish  raptures  he  looked  forward  to  summer  at 
Wake  Robin,  and  once  interrupted  himself  in  the  middle  of 
a  sentence  to  say:  "Oh,  for  the  days  when  you  can  play, 
play  for  me!"  One  warm  late  afternoon,  listening  for  the 
end  of  a  pause  in  his  dictation,  something  caused  me  to  raise 
my  eyes  to  Jack's  face.  His  thread  of  thought  lost,  he  had 
forgotten  all  else  in  the  world  but  the  wonder  of  loving : 

"I'm  quite  mad  for  you,  my  dear,  my  dear,"  he  repeated 
in  the  rare  golden  voice  that  returned  in  shaken  moments. 
"Indeed,  quite  mad — with  all  the  old  madness  of  before 
the  Long  Sickness.  And  so  we  poor  humans,  weak  and  falli 
ble,  and  prone  to  error,  condemn  ourselves  liars,  for  I  would 
not  have  believed  I  could  be  so  mad  twice!" 

Then  and  then  only,  was  I  quite  assured  that  he  was 
saved  to  himself.  But  perhaps,  when  all  is  said,  the  best 
influence  I  had  for  him  was  the  repose  he  said  I  brought — a 
repose  that  otherwise  life  seemed  to  have  denied.  Often  I 
was  reminded  by  him  of  the  first  story  in  which  he  employed 
any  portion  of  his  many-sided  love  for  me.  It  was  i  l  Negore 
the  Coward,"  last  of  the  "Love  of  Life"  collection,  and 
will  be  found  at  the  ending  in  one  of  Jack  London's  masterly 
depictions  of  death : 

"And  as  even  the  memories  dimmed  and  died  in  the 
darkness  that  fell  upon  him,  he  knew  in  her  arms  the  ful 
filment  of  all  the  ease  and  rest  she  had  promised  him. 
And  as  black  night  wrapped  around  him,  his  head  upon 
her  breast,  he  felt  a  great  peace  steal  about  him,  and  he 
was  aware  of  the  hush  of  many  twilights  and  the  mystery 
of  silence." 

I  have  before  me  the  letter  of  the  editor  to  whom  the 


SUMMER  AT  GLEN  ELLEN 


37 


author  first  submitted  this  manuscript.  And  he  comments 
with  surprise  and  delight  upon  the  intangible  "new  touch " 
in  Jack's  work. 

In  the  fly-leaf  of  "Love  of  Life"  stands  his  inscription, 
of  date  November  23, 1909 : 

"Dear  Mate- Woman: — 

"There  is  within  these  pages  a  story  you  wot  of  well,  wherein, 
ng  ago,  I  told  of  my  love  for  you,  and,  more  and  better,  of  all 
,t  you  and  your  love  meant,  and  mean,  to  me." 

My  friend  recovered  rapidly — so  rapidly  that  the  sur- 
eon  was  horrified  to  hear  from  the  irrepressible  'a  smiling- 
y-rebellious,  smoke-wreathed  lips  that  he  intended  to 
ide  his  new  horse  as  soon  as  ever  he  got  to  Glen  Ellen, 
hich  would  be  on  the  18th  of  April.  The  first  time  he  left 
3  house,  was  to  walk  around  the  comer  to  look  over  the 
autiful  animal  which  I  brought  for  him  to  see.  For  I 
d  bought  the  horse — Washoe  Ban,  blue-blooded  Thor- 
ghbred,  his  veins  of  fire  throbbing  through  a  skin  of 
surest  chestnut-gold.  He  was  owned  by  Dr.  H.  N.  Miner  of 
Berkeley,  and  I  had  ridden  him  a  number  of  times  in  the 
>ast.  Two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  of  Jack's  Black  Cat 
>rize  went  for  Ban,  and  I  rode  him  from  Berkeley  to  Oak- 
and,  thence  by  ferry  to  San  Francisco,  river  steamer  to 
etaluma,  where  I  slept,  and  next  day  sat  the  incomparable, 
austless  creature  the  twenty-two  undulating  green  miles 


38       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

*  *  What 's  yours  going  to  be  ? ' '  And  I :  "I  haven 't  thought 
it  out  yet.  What's  yours ?"  "A  cooperative  common 
wealth!'7  he  grinned.  "I'd  like  to  speak  up  with  'Just  lov 
ing,'  "  I  laughed.  "Great!"  shouted  Jack,  "couldn't  be  bet 
ter.  Tell  you  what:  I'll  trade  with  you."  "Done,"  said  I. 
And  at  the  banquet,  upon  the  heels  of  Anna  Strunsky's 
"Happiness  is  adjustment,"  my  borrowed  witticism  raised 
the  expected  applause.  "And  yours?"  Mr.  Bamford  called 
upon  Jack  London : 

"Just  loving"  that  wicked  person  breathed  softly,  his 
long-lashed  eyelids  demurely  drooped. 

A  blank  silence  was  broken  by  a  smothered  "Just 
WHAT?"  from  Mrs.  A.  A.  Dennison,  and  Jack,  raising  his 
eyes,  looked  calmly  about  the  company  with  a  charming 
"What-are-you-going-to-do-about-it"  expression  as  he  re 
peated,  "Just  loving." 

In  passing,  I  want  to  relate,  as  nearly  as  possible  in  his 
own  words,  an  occurrence  that  crystallized  Jack  London  in 
certain  personal  habits  more  than  any  other  self-argument. 
He  put  it  something  this  way: 

"You  remember  Dr.  Nicholson!  He  was  a  magnificent 
specimen  of  a  man,  you  will  agree?  Tall,  straight,  with 
the  beauty  of  the  athlete — girl's  complexion  and  all  that; 
not  a  vicious  habit — drink,  nor  tobacco — not  an  injurious 
leaning.  And  he  warned  me  that  this  and  that  vice  of  mine 
would  ruin  my  health  in  a  short  time.  Well,  listen :  Only 
a  few  short  months  after  he  talked  so  seriously  to  me,  he 
died  in  screaming  agony — rheumatism  of  the  heart  or  some 
such  horribly  excruciating  thing.  Probably  he  had  exposed 
himself  in  his  practice ;  I  don't  know.  But  what  I  do  know, 
is,  that  there  are  all  sorts  of  bad  habits  in  this  world,  and 
he  must  have  landed  on  one  of  them  peculiar  to  his  way 
of  life,  or  it  landed  on  him.  Cigarettes,  or  overwork — I  tell 
yon  it's  all  one;  one's  as  bad  as  the  other;  and  I'll  bet  you 
'even'  money  that  cigarettes  don't  kill  me!" 


SUMMER  AT  GLEN  ELLEN  39 

A  man's  argument,  verily,  and  one  that  supersedes 
man's  finest  logic. 

Washoe  Ban  and  my  Belle  were  housed  amicably  in  a 
little  shack-barn  on  a  small  property  across  the  road  from 
Wake  Eobin  Lodge.  This  was  the  Caroline  Kohler  Ranch, 
familiarly  known  as  the  Fish  Ranch  because  it  had  once  been 
the  scene  of  an  ambitious  failure  in  fish-hatchery.  Jack  had 
painstakingly  considered  the  type  of  my  Australian  saddle, 
but  decided  upon  a  McClellan  tree  that  we  found  in  San 
Francisco,  which  had  been  fitted  with  a  horn.  Ultimately, 
however,  he  adopted  my  model.  And  he  was  almost  as  good 
as  his  challenge  to  Dr.  Nicholson,  for  it  was  but  a  few  days 
after  his  arrival  on  the  18th  that  he  actually  mounted  and 
took  his  first  lesson  in  Ban's  easy,  rocking-horse  stride.  I 
had  yet  to  learn  the  man's  giant  recuperative  power,  and 
was  fully  as  apprehensive  as  the  man  of  medicine,  but  made 
no  protest. 

Not  long  afterward,  at  a  request  from  Oakland,  he 
bought  a  mare  and  surrey  for  his  children  and  their  mother. 
The  animal  later  developed  an  incorrigible  balk,  and  the 
family  tiring  of  this  kind  of  recreation,  Jack  brought  the 
whole  outfit  up-country,  where  the  mare  came  eventually  to 
do  light  work  and  to  negotiate  the  mountain  trails  under 
saddle.  I  am  minded  of  the  day  she  inconveniently  lay 
down  and  rolled  with  her  rider,  none  other  than  Johannes 
Reimers,  in  a  pestiferous  hornet-nest  in  the  grass,  as  a 
means  of  escape  from  the  stinging. 

Jack's  abrupt  relinquishment  of  the  city  occasioned 
considerable  press  comment,  with  which  I  was  connected, 
but  even  The  Examiner  failed  to  command  any  statement 
from  either  of  us  relating  to  matrimonial  intentions. 
Jack  informed  the  paper's  representatives  that  when 
lie  had  anything  to  say  in  the  matter,  he  would  give 
them  the  " scoop,"  and  with  this  they  had  to  be  content. 


40       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

As  for  his  new  choice  of  residence  he  said  to  reporters :  "I 
have  forsaken  the  cities  forever;  winter  and  summer  I 
shall  live  at  Glen  Ellen. " 

Would  to  heaven-upon-earth  that  every  mating  pair  of 
men  and  women  could  know  the  privilege  of  the  illuminat 
ing  sort  of  experience  which  was  Jack's  and  mine  this  six 
months  before  marriage.  In  the  course  of  strenuous  work 
and  play  of  whatsoever  nature,  by  our  wedding  date  in 
November  there  was  little  of  which  we  did  not  have  a  fair 
inkling  as  concerned  each  other's  temperament  and  idiosyn 
crasies. 

For  the  most  part  the  study  was  smooth  sailing,  though 
at  times  beset  by  snags.  Once,  I  shall  never  forget,  it 
came  to  light  that  I  had  been  accused  by  friends  of  Jack's, 
whom  I  had  believed  my  own,  of  disloyalty  and  unveracity. 
With  his  invincible  courage  in  seeking  and  gaging  truth, 
he  put  even  his  Love  impartially  on  the  stand.  To  be  other 
than  sanely  judicial  even  in  so  intimate  a  situation  was 
contrary  to  his  nature  and  method.  True  to  what  he 
called  his  " damned  arithmetic,"  he  undertook  to  thresh 
out  the  difficulty.  Oh,  he  staked  his  love  and  his  proudest 
judgment  upon  my  guiltlessness ;  and,  having  satisfied  him 
self,  he  set  his  every  faculty  to  demonstrating  to  my  de 
tractors,  if  he  perished  in  the  attempt,  that  they  were 
wrong  on  every  count.  All  this  not  so  much  for  personal 
gratification  as  for  the  pleasure  of  confounding  them  with 
my  innocence  and  his  faith.  To  be  sure,  he  had  taken  the 
chance  in  a  million  that  I  prove  false  to  his  firm  idea  of 
my  integrity.  I  met  his  infinitely  sincere  eyes  on  that,  and 
laid  at  his  disposal  all  that  I  had,  and  was.  Amongst  other 
expedients  at  my  hand,  a  little  pocket  diary  routed  the  most 
important  charge  that  had  been  preferred.  Well,  indeed; 
but  better  still,  when  Jack,  excitedly  fishing  up  his  own 
notebook  for  the  same  year,  found  it  tallied  with  mine. 
Other  evidence  dove-tailed  to  his  entire  enlightenment  of 


SUMMER  AT  GLEN  ELLEN  41 

heart  and  brain,  and  I  stood  unassailable  to  our  mutual 
joy,  and  the  vindication  of  his  " damned  arithmetic." 

"If  you  only  knew — you  can't  possibly  know — "  he  burst 
out  one  day  near  the  end  of  the  discussion  by  mail,  "what 
it  means  to  me  to  have  some  one  fighting  with  me  shoulder 
to  shoulder,  fighting  my  own  fight,  in  my  own  way!" 

When  it  was  all  over  and  certain  apologies  demanded 
by  him  had  been  written  me  by  the  unhappy  complainants : 

"Let  me  tell  you  something,"  he  said.  "This  matter 
was  broached  to  me  sometime  ago,  before  I  went  on  the 
Spray  trip.  I  want  to  show  you  a  bit  of  my  philosophy,  in 
general  as  regards  mankind,  in  particular  as  concerns  you 
alone  and  in  relation  to  me : 

"When  friends,  ostensibly  for  my  own  good,  came  to 
me  with  a  tale  about  you,  I  told  them,  first,  that  it  was  a 
pity  they  should  soil  their  hands  in  gutter  politics;  and 
then  I  earnestly  tried  to  help  them  know  me  a  little  better, 
as  a  matter  of  pride  if  you  will,  by  telling  them  that  even 
were  these  absurd  things  true — and  I  would  stake  my  best 
judgment  and  my  soul  that  they  were  not — they  would 
make  no  possible  difference  to  me.  I  said  to  them:  'I  love 
Ghanaian,  not  for  anything  she  may  or  may  not  have  done, 
but  for  what  I  find  her,  for  what  she  is  to  me.  I  know 
human  beings  pretty  well — I  make  my  living  through  my 
understanding  of  them — and  I  know  Charmian  better  than 
to  credit  these  calumnies.  But  the  point  is:  Charmian 
might  have  murdered  her  father  and  mother,  and  subsisted 
solely  upon  little  roast  orphans — it  is  what  I  know  of  her, 
now,  what  she  now  is,  that  counts  with  me.'  " 

"And  really,"  he  once  confessed  in  our  married  years, 
"I  could  almost  have  wished  you'd  had  a  past  like  my  own, 
or  worse,  if  you'd  been  just  the  same  as  when  I  knew  I 
loved  you.  It  would  have  made  you  seem  almost  greater 
to  me — I  mean,  if  you  could  have  come  up  through  degrad 
ing  experiences  that  did  not  degrade  but  left  you  as  I  have 
always  seen  you ! ' ' 


42       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

Since  there  was  no  way  of  actually  manifesting  how 
he  would  have  regarded  me  in  this  suppositions  premise, 
the  question  remained  a  moot  one. 

He  always  pleaded  not  guilty  to  the  passion  of  jealousy, 
despising  and  deriding  it  as  a  low,  bestial  trait.  With 
an  exceptional  capacity  for  tolerance  toward  almost  every 
human  weakness  save  disloyalty,  he  could  not  harbor  any 
sympathy  with  that  calamity  of  the  ages,  sheer  animal 
jealousy.  "  Should  you  turn  from  me  to  another  man,  if 
I  could  not  make  you  happy,  I'd  give  that  man  to  you  on  a 
silver  platter  my  dear,"  he  would  declare,  "and  say  *  Bless 
you,  my  children/ — But  I  don't  believe  /  could  send  you 
on  a  silver  platter  to  a  man — quite !" 

What  better  place  than  this,  further  to  interpret  Jack 
London's  relation  toward  the  element  feminine?  I,  who 
have  known  the  clasp  of  his  soul,  known  him  at  his  highest, 
can  yet  withdraw  from  that  passionate  fellowship  and  re 
gard  his  masculinity  as  a  whole.  Asking  my  reader  to  bear 
in  mind  earlier  manifestations  of  his  philosophy  and  emo 
tions  toward  the  little  woman  of  his  adolescence,  I  shall 
enlarge  upon  his  attitude. 

He  was  not  prone  to  allow  women  to  interfere  with  the 
business  of  life  and  adventure.  He  liked  to  think  of  himself 
as  in  Augustus's  class — that  women  could  not  make  nor 
mar.  In  short,  he  was  not  a  man  who  lost  his  head  easily. 
"God's  own  mad  lover  dying  on  a  kiss"  was  an  appealing 
line  to  his  sense  of  poesy;  but  Jack  preferred  to  live,  rather 
than  die,  on  that  kiss !  Love,  in  brief,  should  be  a  warm 
and  normal  passion  that  made  for  fuller  living.  At  one 
period,  after  soaking  himself  in  the  vast  accumulation  of 
erotic  literature,  pro  and  con,  he  told  me,  with  a  shake  of 
his  fine  shoulders,  that  he  felt  himself  lucky  to  have  been 
born  so  rightly-balanced,  that  no  abnormalities  of  his 
early  rough  days,  nor  contact  with  decadences  of  super- 
civilization,  had  touched  him  to  his  hurt.  The  alienists  in- 


SUMMER  AT  GLEN  ELLEN  43 

terested  him  intellectually,  but  he  was  nicely  avert  to  per 
version  of  any  stripe. 

I  had  supposed  that  there  would  be  little  of  the  pro 
prietary  in  the  regard  of  so  broad-minded  an  individualist. 
One  of  my  most  vital  surprises  was  to  find  that  Jack 
was  as  delightfully  medieval  as  many  another  lover  in 
this  world  when  it  came,  say,  to  matters  financial.  Having 
been  myself  independent,  and  believing  that  he  would  take 
this  into  consideration,  I  looked  for  him  to  make  no  matter 
of  a  separate  bank  account,  or  at  least  the  "  allowance " 
loved  of  wives,  that  I  might  not  suffer  a  sense  of  bondage. 
But  no — like  the  bulk  of  men  his  was  the  pleasure  of  spend 
ing  his  own  money  upon  the  "one  small  woman."  Any 
other  arrangement  was  frowned  upon — at  the  suggestion  a 
frost  seemed  to  spread  over  his  face.  And,  seeing  that  it 
was  he,  I  found  the  bondage  sweet. 

Jack  charmed  women  of  all  classes ;  and  while  he  held 
a  reserved  opinion  as  to  the  intellectuality  of  the  average 
female  brain,  he  could  not  abide  a  stupid  woman.  His 
adventurous  mentality  had  made  him  pursue  women  in 
curiosity,  and  learn  them  too  well  for  his  own  good.  He 
was  of  two  distinct  minds  about  them,  and  swung  from  one 
to  the  other:  their  innate  goodness  and  staunchness  com 
manded  his  worship,  while  their  pitiable  frailty  and  small- 
ness  wrung  his  spirit.  "Pussy!  Pussy!'*  I  can  hear  him 
purr  in  the  ear  of  any  backbiting  among  his  friends. 
Women,  weighed  by  his  biological  judgment,  represented  the 
Eternal  Enemy,  and  he  liked  the  line : 

"Her  narrow  feet  are  rooted  in  the  ground/' 

from  Arthur  Symons's  "The  Dance  of  the  Daughters  of 
Herodias."  Yet  this  very  concept,  not  always  voiced  with 
out  contempt,  must  have  given  rise  to  his  pronouncement  in 
"John  Barleycorn ":  "Women  are  the  true  conservators 
of  the  race." 

He  has  been  heard  to  speak  of  woman  as  "the  immodest 


44       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

sex."  And  "Men  are  far  more  modest  than  women!"  he 
would  step  into  the  heated  air  of  argument,  bringing  down 
storms  upon  his  unrepentant  head.  But  he  considered  that 
he  had  several  blazoned  names  to  bear  him  out,  among  them 
Jean  Paul,  who  said:  "Love  increases  man's  delicacy,  and 
lessens  woman  V  and  Bernard  Shaw:  "If  women  were  as 
fastidious  as  men,  morally  and  physically,  there  would  be 
an  end  of  the  race ! ' ' 

I  must  admit  that  I  have  seen  him  play  down,  not  always 
up,  to  women  and  their  vanity ;  but  to  his  credit  and  theirs, 
he  never  left  them  long  deceived.  And  he  would  not  try  to 
deceive  those  who  spoke  his  own  language,  though  he  made 
it  extremely  difficult  for  them  to  understand  his. 

He  had  struggled  against  misogyny,  winning  out  be 
cause  he  had  had  experience  enough  with  exceptional  women 
of  conscience  and  brain  to  keep  him  healthy  in  viewpoint. 
Besides,  in  the  last  extremity,  he  was  a  one-woman  man, 
glorying  in  the  discovery  of  this.  In  my  copy  of  "Before 
Adam,"  in  1907  he  wrote:  "I  have  read  Schopenhauer 
and  Weininger,  and  all  the  German  misogynists,  and  still 
I  love  you.  Such  is  my  chemism — our  chemism,  rather." 
He  showed  an  actual  reverence  for  the  woman  who  "in 
formed"  her  beauty,  or,  better,  her  lack  of  beauty,  who 
waged  incessant  warfare  upon  her  imperfections,  who 
wrought  excellently  with  the  material  at  her  hand. 

Jack  owned  to  annoyance  that  the  public  denied  he  could 
write  convincingly  about  women.  "And  yet,"  he  would 
say,  l '  I  know  them  too  well  to  write  too  well  about  them ! 
I'd  never  get  past  the  editor  and  the  censor!" 

Despite  that  he  would  often  merely  appear  to  take  women 
at  their  own  valuation  and  act  as  if  he  gave  them  credit 
for  logic,  he  was  possessed  of  a  fine  sense  of  chivalry.  As 
instance:  Once,  bound  to  a  foreign  country,  war-corres 
ponding,  a  girl  friend,  who  had  received  a  similar  commis 
sion,  informed  him  that  they  would  be  sailing  on  the  same 
boat.  Jack  was  in  despair  because  he  knew,  from  knowledge 


SUMMER  AT  GLEN  ELLEN  45 

of  her  want  of  practicality,  that  she  would  be  on  his  already 
full  hands.  "What  would  you  have  done?"  I  asked  him 
once.  He  reflected,  working  those  brows  that  were  like  a 
sea-bird's  wings:  "I'd  have  had  to  marry  her  before  I 
got  through  with  it,  I  suppose!"  "But,"  I  expostulated, 
"but  you  loved  another  woman!"  "Surely,"  he  rejoined; 
'  *  but  what  is  a  man  to  do  ?  Her  reputation  would  have  been 
shattered — so  I  say,  what  can  a  man  do  in  such  circum 
stances,  but  marry  the  girl!" 

Women  have  loved  Jack  London,  aye,  and  died  for  love 
of  him.  And  I  can  imagine,  had  he  been  situated  so  that 
it  would  have  been  possible,  that  his  chivalry  and  sweet- 
heartedness  could  have  led  him  into  marrying  such,  for 
their  own  happiness. 

Once,  I  asked  him  how  he  had  behaved  himself  toward 
the  girls  of  yesterday,  as  he  passed  beyond  them  into  the 
world  that  he  was  making  his — the  Lizzie  Connollys,  the 
Haydees.  '  *  I  saw  them  occasionally, ' '  he  said.  * '  One  must 
be  kind,  you  know." 

Little  of  love  had  he  bought  in  his  life,  except  in  the 
course  of  laying  his  curiosity.  A  passion,  with  him,  must 
be  mutual,  else  worthless. 

And  so  I  became  conversant  with  that  "swarm  of  vibrat 
ing  atoms"  which  men  knew  as  Jack  London,  the  youthful 
literary  craftsman  who  had,  as  one  critic  put  it,  "Lived 
with  storms  and  spaces  and  sunlight  like  a  kinsman." — 
That  was  it ;  the  dominant  note  of  him  was  spaciousness,  for 
the  inflowing  and  out-giving  of  all  available  knowledge  and 
feeling — the  blood  of  adventure,  physical  and  mental, 
scorching  through  life's  channels. 

"Visualization  is  everything  for  the  teacher,"  he  said, 
"and  I  love  to  teach,  to  transmit  to  others  the  ideas  and 
impressions  in  my  own  consciousness." 

It  always  seemed  to  me,  observing,  that  while  others 
were  merely  scratching  the  surface  of  events,  Jack  was  get- 


46       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

ting  underneath  them,  deeper  and  deeper  into  their  sig 
nificances. 

Beligion,  as  the  average  man  knows  religion,  had  no  part 
in  him.  Spiritualism  had  been  the  belief  in  his  childhood 
homes,  a  thing  of  magic  and  f  earsomeness ;  but  his  expand 
ing  perceptions  could  not  countenance  that  belief.  His 
hope  for  bettering  human  conditions  had  filled  depths  of 
being  which  might  have  responded  to  divine  philosophy. 
Again  his  norm :  ' '  Somehow,  we  must  ever  build  upon  the 
concrete/'  Again  his  oft-repeated  criticism  rings  in  the 
ears  of  memory:  "Will  it  work — will  you  trust  your  life 
to  it!" 

In  a  little  book  of  Ernest  Untermann's,  " Science  and 
Eevolution, ' 9  which  Jack  gave  me  to  read  at  that  time,  I 
come  upon  a  sentence  underscored  for  my  benefit:  "My 
method  of  investigation  is  that  of  historical  materialism. ' ' 

It  is  also  to  be  said  that  I  unlearned  much  of  my 
man  thp.t  had  been  told  and  impressed  upon  me  in  the  past, 
even  by  persons  who  should  have  known  better  or  who  did 
know  better  and  cruelly  misrepresented  him.  In  fact, 
Jack  forever  claimed  to  nurse  a  small  grievance  that  I 
should  ever  have  been  misled,  no  matter  by  whom,  from  my 
direct  early  conclusions  upon  him.  I  recall,  however,  in 
the  old  Piedmont  days,  that  while  reserving  certain  few  un 
complimentary  opinions,  so  ready  was  I  to  stand  up  to  any 
one  who  made  unjust  remarks  in  his  disfavor,  that  more 
than  once  I  was  accused  of  taking  undue  interest  in  the 
young  celebrity. 

To  the  exclusion  of  all  else,  I  devoted  myself  to 
mastering  the  open  book  that  he  tried  to  render  himself 
to  me.  Even  the  piano  was  silent  except  when  I  played 
for  Jack,  and  the  trips  to  Berkeley  with  my  music  roll  be 
came  less  frequent  and  eventually  ceased,  I  will  say  to  his 
unqualified  disapproval.  (He  never  could  entertain  the 
idea,  in  the  long  years  of  our  brimming  life,  why  I  could 
not  give  more  time  to  music,  since  he  too  loved  it  so.)  I 


SUMMER  AT  GLEN  ELLEN  47 

learned  the  eloquence  of  his  tongue;  the  fine  arrogance 
of  his  certitudes;  convictions  I  came  to  respect  for  their 
broad  wisdom;  and  I  knew,  too,  and  richly,  the  eloquence 
of  his  silences  in  the  starry  moments  that  come  to  those  who 
loved  as  we  loved,  and,  loving,  understand  mutely.  More 
than  once,  Jack  has  broken  a  comprehending  pause,  or 
even  interrupted  speech  to  say  to  me  the  dearest  and  finest 
of  all  his  salutations  in  my  thrilling  ears : 

"My  kin — my  very  own  Twin  Brother!" 

One  thing,  in  that  earlier  association  with  Jack,  was 
almost  uncanny:  he  never  seemed  to  fail  of  my  high  ex 
pectation.  Tremulous,  I  all  but  looked  for  him  to  fail  of 
making  good,  to  my  ideal,  in  this  or  that  small,  fine  par 
ticular.  But  in  vain :  usually  he  surpassed  the  tentative  de 
mand  I  made  upon  his  quality.  His  own  failings  he  had,  to 
be  sure;  but  they  were  not  those  ordinarily  suspected  of 
lesser  men. 

The  frankness  which  we  continued  to  practise  and  exalt, 
made  of  our  mate  ship,  through  thick  and  thin,  a  gorgeous 
achievement. 

So  I  walked  softly  that  spring  and  summer  and  fall, 
dedicated  to  discern  with  my  own  soul's  best  all  of  him  that 
was  possible,  that  I  might  enlarge  and  fix  this  kinship  for 
ever  and  forever.  Upon  one  star  I  was  intent:  Never 
must  our  love  and  its  expression  sink  into  commonplace, 
but  it  must  be  kept  from  out  "the  ruck  of  casual  and  transi 
tory  things. "  And  this  was  Jack's  answer: 

'  i  Commonplaceness  shall  have  no  part  with  us  unless  I 
myself  should  become  commonplace ;  and  I  think  that  can 
never  be." 

And  Jack  London  learned  his  woman,  playing  her 
game  as  she  tried  to  play  his.  With  his  broad  sympathies, 
to  his  own  peculiar  interests  he  subjoined  mine;  and  I, 
in  return,  widened  my  focus  to  include  hobbies  for  which 
I  had  theretofore  had  no  caring,  thus  creating  fresh  in 
terests  for  my  own  sphere.  Jack,  for  example,  loved  keenly 


48       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

a  good  card  game.  I  had  little  use  for  cards ;  but  I  applied 
myself,  to  the  end  that  before  long  I  could  play  a  fair  game 
of  whist,  or  cribbage,  or  pinochle.  And  when  Jack  found 
that  certain  stern  methods  of  instruction  distressed  and 
stood  in  the  way  of  quick  absorption  on  my  part,  in  all 
gentleness  he  went  right-about  in  his  lifelong  tactics,  ex 
hibiting  due  appreciation  of  the  harmony  that  had  come  to 
prevail  in  his  life.  He  had  until  then  rather  prided 
himself  upon  an  ability  to  shake  knowledge  into  others,  and 
I  credited  him  with  altering  his  way  to  favor  me.  He 
told  me  of  how  he  had  once,  in  half  an  hour,  taught  a  rather 
moronic  young  girl  to  tell  time  by  the  clock — all  others  hav 
ing  failed.  ' l  But  that 's  no  reason, ' '  I  laughingly  contended, 
"that  you  can  teach  me  whist  by  the  same  rules !" 

With  regard  to  our  hard  work  together,  and  making 
toward  a  co-existing  love  and  comradeship,  I  said:  "We 
can't  fail,  because  everything  we  do  is  compensatory  life 
and  living.  His  reply  was:  "So  try  to  enjoy  the  fight 
for  its  own  sake ! ' ' 

Critics  then  as  now  were  prone  to  dispatch  the  subject 
of  Jack  London 's  personality  with  words  like  i '  primitive, ' ' 
1  i  uncouth, ' '  "  brutal. ' '  He  saw  the  primitiveness  in  all  life, 
in  himself — as  he  saw  everything  else,  and  made  all  things 
come  under  the  empery  of  his  thought  and  written  lan 
guage;  but  he  did  not  live  primitiveness,  inasmuch  as  he 
was  delicate,  complex,  withal  simple  in  the  final  analyses 
of  him.  The  chastity  of  the  last  analysis  is  like  the  chastity 
of  his  art  that  so  often  showed  the  last  least  perfection  of 
chiseling.  Kobustness  of  body  and  mind  offset,  almost  con 
tradicted,  the  sensitiveness  to  impressions,  that  reaction  to 
beauty  of  every  sort — though  particularly  intellectual 
beauty — and  to  sympathy  from  others  in  his  mood,  his 
aims ;  and  his  shrinking  from  hurt,  although  only  from  the 
very,  very  few.  Yet  in  himself,  in  his  actions,  in  his  work, 
there  existed  a  regnant  overtone,  a  cogency.  Again  I  say: 
there  was  no  paradox  in  him.  Beleaguered  ever  with  the 


SUMMER  AT  GLEN  ELLEN  49 

thousand-thousand  connotations,  factors,  in  the  chaos  he 
did  not  falter,  but  somehow  achieved  unity,  and  a  great 
rhythm.  He  knew  himself;  and  it  was  a  day  of  rejoicing 
when  one  departed  guest,  Everett  Lloyd,  sent  him  Wein- 
inger's  "Sex  and  Character, "  with  the  author's  definition 
of  a  genius :  "A  genius  is  he  who  is  conscious  of  most,  and 
of  that  most  acutely. ' ' 

Jack's  writing,  his  thousand  words  a  day,  was  done  in  a 
little  "work-room"  established  in  the  two-room  cottage, 
quite  without  any  of  that  work-fever  often  necessary  to 
writers.  And  whensoever  art  conflicted  with  substance,  he 
invariably  maintained : 

1  *  I  will  sacrifice  form  every  time,  when  it  boils  down  to 
a  final  question  of  choice  between  form  and  matter.  The 
thought  is  the  thing. " 

As  some  one  has  said,  "He  cared  little  for  writing  and 
a  great  deal  for  what  he  was  writing  about. " 

Here  is  further  expression  of  his  unrelenting  realism, 
"  brass-tack "  reality — although  it  seems  to  me,  all  having 
been  said,  that  his  materialism  incarnated  his  idealism, 
and  his  idealism  consecrated  and  transfigured  his  material 
ism: 

"I  no  more  believe  in  Art  for  Art's  sake  theory  than  I  believe 
that  a  human  and  humane  motive  justifies  the  inartistic  telling  of 
a  story.  I  believe  there  are  saints  in  slime  as  well  as  saints  in 
heaven,  and  it  depends  how  the  slime  saints  are  treated — upon 
their  environment — as  to  whether  they  will  ever  leave  the  slime  or 
not.  People  find  fault  with  me  for  my  'disgusting  realism.'  Life 
is  full  of  disgusting  realism.  I  know  men  and  women  as  they  are — 
millions  of  them  yet  in  the  slime  state.  But  I  am  an  evolutionist, 
therefore  a  broad  optimist,  hence  my  love  for  the  human  (in  the 
slime  though  he  be)  comes  from  my  knowing  him  as  he  is  and 
seeing  the  divine  possibilities  ahead  of  him.  That's  the  whole 
motive  of  my  'White  Fang.'  Every  atom  of  organic  life  is  plastic. 
The  finest  specimens  now  in  existence  were  once  all  pulpy  infants 
capable  of  being  molded  this  way  or  that.  Let  the  pressure  be  one 
way  and  we  have  atavism — the  reversion  to  the  wild ;  the  other  the 


50       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

domestication,  civilization.  I  have  always  been  impressed  with  the 
awful  plasticity  of  life  and  I  feel  that  I  can  never  lay  enough  stress 
upon  the  marvelous  power  and  influence  of  environment. 

"No  work  in  the  world  is  so  absorbing  to  me  as  the  people  of 
the  world.  I  care  more  for  personalities  than  for  work  or  art." 

And  he  always  stuck  to  it  that  Herbert  Spencer's  "Phil 
osophy  of  Style"  helped  him  more  in  his  youth,  than  any 
other  book — save  Ouida's  "Signa,"  his  initial  impetus — 
to  success  in  literature.  "It  taught  me,"  he  said,  "the 
subtle  and  manifold  operations  necessary  to  transmute 
thought,  beauty,  sensation  and  emotion  into  black  symbols 
on  white  paper;  which  symbols  through  the  reader's  eye, 
were  taken  into  his  brain,  and  by  his  brain  transmuted  into 
thought,  beauty,  sensation  and  emotion  that  fairly  cor 
responded  with  mine.  Among  other  things,  this  taught  me 
to  know  the  brain  of  my  reader,  in  order  to  select  the  sym 
bols  that  would  compel  his  brain  to  realize  my  thought,  or 
vision,  or  emotion.  Also,  I  learned  that  the  right  symbols 
were  the  ones  that  would  require  the  expenditure  of  the 
minimum  of  my  reader's  brain  energy,  leaving  the  maxi 
mum  of  his  brain  energy  to  realize  and  enjoy  the  content  of 
my  mind,  as  conveyed  to  his  mind."  But  "In  my  grown 
up  years, ' '  he  surveyed,  '  '  the  writers  who  have  influenced 
me  most  are  Karl  Marx  in  a  particular,  and  Spencer  in  a 
general,  way." 

So  never  was  I  able  to  wring  from  him  any  worship  of 
art  for  art's  sake,  although  he  strove  for  art  with  every 
well-selected  instrument  of  his  chosen  calling;  attained 
art,  high  art  at  times;  and,  being  a  potential  Teacher,  he 
could  explain  the  means  of  it — this  because  he  knew  so 
exactly  how  he  produced  his  effects. 

"You're  the  genius  of  us  two,"  he  flabbergasted  me  one 
day  when  I,  who  never  knew  how  I  did  the  very  few  things 
I  did  well,  had  excelled  perhaps  in  a  dive,  or  a  passage  in 
music,  or  the  revamping  of  some  sentence  that  had  eluded 
his  own  skill.  "You  don't  know  at  all  how  you  do  things, 


SUMMER  AT  GLEN  ELLEN  51 

you  see,"  he  went  on,  "You  just  do  them.  And  sometimes 
you  fall  down  and  cannot  do  them  again.  Now  that's  genius, 
or  of  the  nature  of  genius.  Take  George  Sterling;  hand 
him  a  problem  of  almost  any  sort,  something  he  had  prob 
ably  never  thought  of  before,  certainly  never  studied.  And 
ten  to  one  in  a  short  time  he  will  have  given  a  masterly 
solution.  That's  genius — big  genius.  No,  there's  no  genius 
in  mine — unless  it's  the  Weininger  kind.  I'm  too  practical 
—that's  why  I'm  a  good  teacher.  Now  you,  my  dear,"  in 
candidness  he  offset  some  of  his  praise,  "make  a,  rotten 
teacher !  For  instance,  that  riding  lesson  to-day, — you  ride 
as  if  you  had  ridden  into  the  world  in  the  first  place, — but 
I'm  damned  if  you  can  show  me  how  to  'post'  on  a  trot  as 
you  do!" 

The  pleasurable  course  of  our  companionship  had  its 
normal  interruptions.  I  had  to  become  familiar  with  his 
man  humors.  But  he  never  moped,  and  seldom  was  taci 
turn.  And  his  immoderate  smoking  was  a  trial;  but  after 
once  broaching  the  subject  and  finding  it  a  tender  one  with 
him,  I  dropped  all  reference  to  the  matter.  Although 
he  admired  frankness,  courage,  the  pettish  side  that  women 
know  of  the  biggest  men  where  their  personal  comforts  are 
in  question,  prevented  my  courage  from  demanding  what  I 
had  confidently  hoped  for.  I  should  have  known  better; 
but  then,  I  was  learning.  At  no  time  did  I  ever  hear  him 
advise  against  smoking ;  yet  he  promised  his  nephew,  Irving 
Shepard,  a  thousand  dollars  if  he  would  refrain  from 
smoking  until  he  was  twenty-one.  From  our  conversation 
on  smoking,  I  gathered  that  his  habit  was  a  rather  negligible 
detail  in  comparison  with  the  thousand  and  one  larger 
issues  that  occupied  his  mind.  How  shall  I  say?  .  .  . 
that  this  one  habit,  a  mere  habit,  which  required  none  of  his 
conscious  attention,  should  not  be  too  seriously  considered 
by  him  or  others.  Also,  Jack  seemed  of  a  mind  that  the 
nerve-strain  of  refraining  offset  any  advantage  that  might 
be  derived  from  abstinence  from  cigarettes. 


52       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

Long  hot  afternoons  of  typewriter  dictation  under  the 
trees  sometimes  got  on  our  mutual  touchy  nerves,  and  we 
became  cognizant  of  still  more  of  each  other 's  caprices. 
Or  suddenly,  not  yet  versed  in  his  "  brass-tack "  reasoning, 
his  "  arithmetic, ' '  I  might  unwittingly  start  disputes  in 
which  I  had  no  chance  against  the  assault  of  his  logic,  and 
would  struggle  with  nerves  that  urged  me  to  weep  in  sheer 
feminine  bafflement,  hating  myself  the  more  heartily.  But 
always  before  me  rose  an  honest  warning  with  which  Jack 
had  forearmed  us  both  previously  to  his  coming: 

' '  One  thing  I  want  to  tell  you  for  your  own  good  and  our  happi 
ness  together.  I  do  not  think  you  are  a  hysterical  woman.  But 
donrt  ever  have  hysterics  with  me.  You  may  think  I'm  hard. 
Maybe  I  am;  but  very  earliest  in  my  environment,  in  the  very 
molding  of  the  tender  thing  I  was,  I  came  to  recoil  from  hysteria — 
all  the  bestiality  of  uncontrol  and  its  phenomena.  In  my  man 
hood  I  have  seen  tears  and  hysteria,  and  false  fainting  spells,  all 
the  unlovely  futility  of  that  sort  of  thing  that  gets  a  woman  less 
than  nothing  from  me.  So  never,  never,  I  pray,  if  you  love  me, 
show  yourself  hysterical.  I  promise  you  I  shall  be  cold,  hard,  even 
curious.  And  I  will  admit,  in  your  case,  that  I  should  be  hurt  as 
well.  But  remember,  always,  this  coldness  is  not  deliberate  of  me : 
it's  become  second  nature — a  warp.  I  cannot  help  shrinking  from 
tantrums  as  from  unf  or  gotten  blows.  .  .  .  Once,  when  I  was  about 
three  (and  this  is  burned  into  me  with  a  hot  iron),  flower  in  hand 
for  a  gift,  I  was  brushed  aside,  kicked  over,  by  an  angry,  rebellious 
woman  striding  on  her  ego-maniacal  way.  Well,  I  made  an  un 
happy  mouth  and  went  on  my  own  puzzled,  dazed  path,  dimly 
wounded,  non-understanding.  And  that  woman  I  believed  the 
most  wonderful  woman  in  the  world,  for  she  had  said  so  herself. 
So,  this  and  other  hysterical  scenes  have  seared  me,  and  I  cannot 
help  myself." 

It  is  a  privilege  to  serve  under  a  great  captain ;  and  I 
sat  at  his  feet  and  endeavored  with  all  my  womanhood  to 
come  up  to  his  fine,  sane  standard  of  companionship,  the 
thing  he  had  missed  even  with  men,  it  would  seem.  His  free 


SUMMER  AT  GLEN  ELLEN  53 

confidence  and  his  Grand  Passion  were  my  guerdon.  And 
there  blossomed  in  him  a  new  and  wonderful  patience  that 
his  older  friends  could  hardly  credit — patience  in  the  little 
things  that,  handled  rightly,  or  ignored,  make  for  the  day's 
harmony.  And  I  hastened  to  discount  his  harshness  in 
argument,  in  order  to  partake  of  the  kernel,  realizing  that 
when  he  called  a  spade  a  spade,  it  was  a  battle  against  arti 
ficiality,  toward  soundness  of  thought  and  speech  upon  vital 
truths — or  vital  lies. 

A  woman  whom  he  greatly  admired  had  acquired  Chris 
tian  Science  and  wanted  to  argue  upon  it  with  Jack.  With 
her  enunciated  premise,  I  saw  Jack's  blood  begin  to  rise: 
"Can  no-being  be?"  she  shot  at  him,  and  sat  back  waiting 
his  verdict.  Although  they  had  it  hammer  and  tongs 
for  hours,  they  actually  never  got  beyond  the  premise. 
Jack  refused  to  consider  such  a  posit — his  scientific  mind 
revolted  from  it  and  the  two  failed  to  come  together  on  even 
the  definition  of  words,  without  which  there  could  be  no  rea 
soning.  For  days  he  went  about  muttering,  "Can  no- 
being  be!  Can  no-being  be! — "What  do  you  think  of  it!" 

But  inasmuch  as  his  arguing  was  impersonal,  I  think 
the  following  letter  to  Blanche  Partington,  written  in  1911, 
after  a  warm  discussion  upon  Christian  Science  generally 
and  Christ's  Temptation  in  the  Wilderness  in  particular, 
is  of  value  as  an  illustration : 

"  Dear  Blanche  :•— 

"Bless  you  for  taking  me  just  as  I  am,  and  for  not  implying 
one  iota  more  to  me  than  what  I  stand  for. 

"I  am,  as  you  must  have  divined  ere  this,  a  fool  truthseeker 
with  a  nerve  of  logic  exposed  and  raw  and  screaming.  Perhaps,  it 
is  my  particular  form  of  insanity. 

"I  grope  in  the  mud  of  common  facts.  I  fight  like  a  wolf  and 
a  hyena.  And  I  don't  mean  a  bit  more,  or  less,  than  I  say.  That 
is,  I  am  wholly  concerned  with  the  problem  I  am  wildly  discussing 
for  the  moment. 

"The  problem  of  the  'language  of  the  tribe/  I  fear  me,  is  more 


54       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

profound  than  you  apprehend — also  more  disconcerting  than  you 
may  imagine  for  the  ones  who  attempt  to  talk  in  the  lingo  of  two 
different  worlds  at  one  and  the  same  time. 

"Affectionately  thine, 

"Jack  London/' 

Sometimes,  when  he  had  been  shockingly  literal  in  lan 
guage  of  interpretation  in  one  field  or  another,  with  blaz 
ing  unrepentant  eyes  he  would  lash  out : 

"Am  I  right?  You  don't  answer!  Am  I  right?  If  not, 
show  me  where  I  am  wrong.  I  must  be  shown ! ' ' 

The  intense  effort  required  to  "show"  where  I  thought 
him  wrong  would  keep  poor  me  on  tiptoe  morning,  noon  and 
night — more  especially  since  I  nearly  always  had  to  own 
to  myself  and  finally  to  him  that  he  was  right.  Slowly  I 
commenced  to  lean  upon  his  judgment,  for  time  and  again 
I  found  he  could  not  fail  me.  In  the  beginning  I  have  in 
sheer  exhaustion  been  guilty,  though  very  rarely,  of  the 
unworthy  ruse  of  giving  in  when  I  was  not  convinced.  But 
let  him  suspect  the  attempted  deceit,  and  the  dawning  light 
in  his  face  fell  into  dark  disapprobation.  So  I  came  to 
face  every  issue  with  him  squarely,  no  matter  what  the 
price  in  time,  inconvenience,  nerves,  everything. 

As  if  in  reassurance,  he  indited  in  my  copy  of  "War  of 
the  Classes": 

"Dear  Mate: 

"Just  to  tell  you  that  you  are  more  Mate  than  ever,  and  that 
the  years  to  come  are  bound  to  see  us  very  happy. 

"Mate." 

This  is  not  a  wail — oh,  quite  the  opposite.  The  educa 
tion  to  me  was  an  inestimable  treasure.  It  insured  a  teem 
ing  intellectual  life  for  all  my  days  on  earth.  Jack  so  loved, 
and  avowedly,  to  jar  people  out  of  their  narrow  ruts  and 
their  preconceived  notions  about  themselves.  The  insincere 
shrinking  of  smug  souls  from  the  onset  of  argument 
was  sustenance  to  his  missionary  mind.  He  would  make 


SUMMER  AT  GLEN  ELLEN  55 

them  uncomfortable  to  sleep  with  their  niggling  little  petty 
viewpoints,  he  would.  I  can  see  the  flags  of  battle  in  his 
eyes,  hark  again  to  the  old  war-note  strike  in  his  fresh 
young  voice.  And  when  he  had  reduced  them  to  powder 
without  a  spark  left  in  it,  he  was  delicious,  irresistible,  in 
his  expression  of  contrition : 

" Don't  mind  my  harshness,'7  he  would  plead.  "I  al 
ways  raise  my  voice  and  talk  with  my  hands;  I  can't  help 
it. — But  don't  you  see!  Don't  you  see,"  more  often  than 
not  he  would  come  back.  "Tell  me,  am  I  right  or  wrong? 
I  beg  you  to  show  me  where  I  am  wrong. ' '  It  was  his  in 
trepid  way  of  expressing  the  abounding  life  and  thought 
that  were  in  him.  On  sentry-go  at  the  gates  of  observation 
and  conscience,  he  was  the  Apostle  of  the  Truth  if  ever 
there  was  one. 

Luckless  was  the  victim  who  could  not  benefit  by  the 
brusk  tonic  of  his  argument;  and  indeed,  it  was  a  tonic 
to  himself,  until  the  years  when  he  grew  too  weary  with  the 
hopelessness  of  leavening  the  inert  mass  of  humanity. 
H.  G.  "Wells 's  definition  of  the  average  mind — "A  projec 
tion  of  inherent  imperfections" — would  have  suited  Jack. 

He  was  an  undisappointing  wonder  to  us  all.  Despite 
his  boredom  with  small  minds,  one  would  see  him  completely 
possessed,  enthralled,  by  the  simple  goodness  of  some 
one  in  the  humblest  walk  of  life.  There  were  in  the  neigh 
borhood  certain  characters  who  had  fallen  into  ways  of 
hopelessness;  and  Jack's  manly  tenderness,  always  aug 
mented  by  an  unostentatious  hand  in  his  pocket,  was  a 
speechless  pleasure  to  me,  one  to  emulate  for  his  sweet  sake. 
Then  there  would  be  his  unbounded  appreciation  of  some 
tiny  farm  where  perhaps  a  by-gone  workman  of  Jack's  with 
wife  and  child,  lived  happily  with  one  cow,  one  horse,  a 
few  chickens.  Delight  shone  all  over  him  if  he  detected 
an  idea  of  his  own  which  had  been  incorporated  into  the 
other's  agricultural  equipment. 


56       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

One  shining  example  of  that  manly  kindness  I  shall 
never  forget:  Once,  at  sea  on  a  great  square-rigger,  the 
skipper,  probably  from  illness  that  rendered  him  otherwise 
than  his  usual  self,  issued  an  order  that  all  but  piled  us 
upon  a  famous  "  graveyard  of  ships. "  But  Jack,  jealous 
of  a  good  seaman's  reputation,  protected  the  captain's 
blunder  from  the  eyes  of  the  world. 

He  cared  almost  not  at  all,  except  as  it  might  affect  his 
market,  or  his  authority,  for  public  opinion  of  himself  or 
his  books.  But  I  came  to  find  him  simply,  touchingly  sen 
sitive  to  approval  from  the  exceeding  few  whom  he  loved, 
and  another  exceeding  few  whose  discrimination  he  revered. 

It  is  beyond  hand  of  mine  to  draw  with  strong  and  supple 
strokes  a  convincing  picture  of  this  protean  man-boy.  To 
me  he  stands  out  simple  enough  in  all  his  complexity ;  yet  I 
can  scarcely  hope  to  leave  this  impression  with  the  reader — 
so  numberless  were  the  factors  in  the  sum  of  his  person 
ality.  The  greatest,  perhaps,  of  all  ingredients  in  his  make 
up,  was  the  surpassing  lovableness  that  made  his  very  defi 
ciencies  appear  loveworthy.  No  matter  what  the  irri 
tability  of  mental  stress  from  whatsoever  source,  appeal  to 
him  with  love  and  desire  of  understanding,  and  the  world 
was  yours  could  he  give  it  to  you. 

Needing  immediate  cash,  Jack  delayed  beginning  "White 
Fang,"  and  the  young  master  of  the  short  story  went  to 
work  spilling  upon  tales  like  " Brown  Wolf"  the  warmth 
and  color  of  rural  California  that  had  got  into  his  pound 
ing  blood;  ' ' Planchette " — the  material  for  this  last  was 
founded  upon  an  incident  that  had  once  come  under  my 
observation,  and  I  passed  it  on  to  him;  and  presently,  re 
quiring  the  frozen  spaces  once  more  for  scenes  of  other 
motifs,  he  wrote  "The  Sun  Dog  Trail,"  "A  Day's  Lodg 
ing,"  "Love  of  Life,"  and  "The  Unexpected"— all  these  to 
be  found  in  "Moon  Face"  and  "Love  of  Life"  collections. 
In  a  letter  to  me  during  absence  in  the  city,  answering  my 


SUMMER  AT  GLEN  ELLEN  57 

query  if  his  description  of  death  were  founded  upon  his 
own  late  bout  with  chloroform,  he  wrote : 

"Yes — the  death  lines  of  'All  Gold  Canyon*  came  from 
my  experience  with  the  ' little  death  in  life,'  'the  drunken 
dark/  'the  sweet  thick  mystery  of  chloroform/ — you  re 
member  Henley's  'Hospital  Sketches.'  " 

Meantime  "The  Sea  Wolf"  held  sway  among  the  "best 
sellers,"  and  was  much  discussed.  Reviewers  especially 
girded  at  the  details  of  Humphrey  van  Weyden  's  lovemak- 
ing  to  Maud.  "I  don't  think  it's  silly,"  Jack  considered. 
"I  think  it  is  very  natural  and  sweet.  It's  the  way  I  make 
love,  and  I  don't  think  I  am  silly!"  As  for  the  main  motif, 
I  find  this : 

' '  I  want  to  make  a  tale  so  plain  that  he  who  runs  may  read,  and 
then  there  is  the  underlying  psychological  motif.  In  'The  Sea 
Wolf  there  was,  of  course,  the  superficial  descriptive  story,  while 
the  underlying  tendency  was  to  prove  that  the  superman  cannot  be 
successful  in  modern  life.  The  superman  is  anti-social  in  his 
tendencies,  and  in  these  days  of  our  complex  society  and  sociology 
he  cannot  be  successful  in  his  hostile  aloofness.  Hence  the  unpop 
ularity  of  the  financial  supermen  like  Rockefeller;  he  acts  like  an 
irritant  in  the  social  body." 

"Tales  of  the  Fish  Patrol"  was  appearing  serially  in 
Youths'  Companion,  and  the  critics  worried  over  wha,t  they 
dared  commit  themselves  to  about  "The  War  of  the 
Classes"  group  of  articles.  Mostly,  of  course,  it  was  se 
verely  slated  for  its  radicalism,  as  the  young  evangel  of 
economics  had  naturally  forecast. 

Better  than  all  other  accomplishment,  the  boy  was  so 
happy,  gone  the  Long  Sickness,  and  now  living  a  new  man 
ner  of  life.  It  was  the  first  time  he  had  ever  "let  himself 
go  for  long,"  to  relax  and  rest  in  the  assurance  of  an  at 
mosphere  of  eager  comprehension.  He  came  to  realize  the 
value  and  practice  of  the  little  thing  that  offsets  the  strain 


58       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

of  the  big  thing-.  To  saddle  his  horse  leisurely,  to  direct 
its  lesser  intelligence ;  to  play  with  Brown  Wolf  and  delve 
into  that  reticent  comrade's  brain-processes;  to  see  that 
a  hammock  was  properly  swung  down  the  mossy  stream- 
side  under  the  maples  and  alders — oh,  no,  he  did  not  hang 
it  himself,  but  "bossed"  while  Manyoungi  did  the  work. 
Aside  from  learning  to  saddle  and  harness  horses,  he  was 
in  the  main  faithful  in  his  vow  never  again  to  work  with 
his  hands.  The  only  exception  I  recall  was  when  he  be 
came  interested  in  cultivating  French  mushrooms.  Spawn 
was  ordered  from  the  east,  and  he  made  the  bed  down  by 
the  Graham  Creek  near  where  he  had  once  written  on  "The 
Sea  Wolf, ' '  planted  and  tended  and  reaped,  to  the  astonish 
ment  of  all  who  knew  him. 

One  peculiarity  I  never  could  fathom.  Despite  the  small- 
ness  of  his  hands,  the  taper  fingers  and  delicacy  of  their 
touch,  he  was  all  thumbs  when  it  came  to  manipulating 
small  objects — say  rigging  up  fishing  gear,  buttoning  or 
hooking  a  garment,  tending  his  stylographic  ink-pencils. 
He  might  easily  have  been  the  original  model  of  the  hu 
morists'  exasperated  husband  playing  maid  to  his  wife's 
back-buttoned  raiment.  He  did  it  willingly  enough  when 
no  one  else  was  about,  but  with  much  unsaintly  verbiage  of 
which  he  gave  due  heralding.  Yet  with  this  clumsiness 
which  was  a  fount  of  speculation  to  Jack,  he  was  able  to 
pride  himself  that  he  never  destroyed  anything — this  all 
the  more  remarkable  when  taking  into  account  that  he 
invariably  "talked  with  his  hands."  Once,  waving  his 
arms  at  table,  I  saw  him  sweep  a  "student"  lamp  clear, 
which  he  caught  before  it  could  reach  the  floor ;  but  he  never 
broke  a  dish. 

Here  he  gives  me  proof  of  my  guerdon,  written  in 
the  fly-leaf  of  "The  Game,"  which  came  to  Glen  Ellen  in 
June: 


SUMMER  AT  GLEN  ELLEN  59 

"Dear  Mate: 

"Whose  voice  and  touch  are  quick  to  soothe,  and  who,  with  a 
firm  hand,  has  helped  me  to  emerge  from  my  'long  sickness7  so 
that  I  might  look  upon  the  world  again  clear-eyed. 

"From  your  Mate." 

And  in  "John  Barleycorn, "  eight  years  later: 

"Dear  Mate-Woman: 

"You  know.  You  have  helped  me  bury  the  Long  Sickness  and 
the  White  Logic. 

"Your  Mate-Man, 
"Jack  London." 

We  rode  all  over  the  Valley,  and  explored  the  sylvan 
mazes  of  its  embracing  ranges  and  the  intricacies  of  little 
hills  with  their  little  vales,  that  to  the  north  divide  the 
valley  proper.  And  we  visited  the  hot-springs  resorts 
southerly  in  the  valley,  Agua  Caliente  and  Boyes,  for  the 
tepid  swimming  tanks.  Once  or  twice  we  met  Captain 
H.  E.  Boyes  and  Mrs.  Boyes,  who  asked  us  into  their  quaint 
English  cottage ;  and  I  remember  that  the  Captain  showed 
Jack  a  letter  received  from  Eudyard  Kipling,  asking  if 
he  had  run  across  Jack  London  around  Sonoma,  and  in 
closing  a  copy  of  "Mainly  About  People "  containing  a 
flattering  criticism  of  Jack's  work. 

We  boxed,  we  swam,  we  did  everything  under  the  sun 
except  walk.  Jack  never  walked  any  distance  save  when 
there  was  no  other  way  to  progress.  I  was  in  entire 
accord  with  this,  as  with  a  thousand  and  one  other  mutual 
preferences.  I  have  seen  him  deprive  himself  of  a  pleasure, 
if  walking  was  the  means  of  getting  at  it.  "You're  the 
only  woman  I  ever  walked  far  to  keep  an  engagement 
with,"  he  told  me;  then  spoiled  the  pretty  compliment  by 
adding  mischievously,  "but  I  rode  most  of  the  way  on  my 
bicycle — that  night,  you  remember?  when  I  got  arrested 
for  speeding  inside  Oakland's  city  limits!" 


60       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

Those  who  regarded  Jack  London  as  physically  power 
ful  were  quite  right;  but  they  would  be  astonished  to  find 
that  his  big,  shapely  muscles  of  arm  and  shoulder  and  leg, 
equal  to  any  emergency  whether  from  momentary  call  or  of 
endurance,  were  not  of  the  stone-hard  variety,  even  under 
tension.  Why,  I,  "small,  tender  woman, "  as  he  liked  to 
say,  could  flex  a  firmer  bicep  than  Jack's,  to  his  eternal 
amusement.  But  we  were  as  alike  as  some  twins  in  many 
characteristics — particularly  our  supersensitive  flesh.  I 
had  always  been  ashamed  that  in  spite  of  years  of  horse 
back  riding,  let  me  be  away  from  the  saddle  for  a  month  or 
even  less,  and  the  first  ride  would  lame  my  muscles.  To  my 
surprise  Jack,  who  became  an  enthusiastic  and  excellent 
horseman,  showed  the  identical  weakness  to  the  end  of  his 
life. 

As  the  weeks  warmed  into  summer,  campers  flocked  to 
Wake  Robin,  and  the  swimming  pool  in  Sonoma  Creek,  be 
low  the  Fish  Ranch's  banks,  was  a  place  of  wild  romping 
every  afternoon.  Jack  taught  the  young  folk  to  swim  and 
dive,  and  to  live  without  breathing  during  exciting  tourna 
ments  of  under- water  tag,  or  searching  for  hidden  objects. 
Certain  shiny  white  door-knobs  and  iron  rings  that  were 
never  retrieved,  must  still  be  implanted  in  the  bottom  of 
the  almost  unrecognizable  old  pool  beneath  the  willows, 
or  else  long  since  have  traveled  down  the  valley  to  the 
Bay. 

There  were  madder  frolics  on  the  sandy  beach  at  the 
northern  edge  of  the  bathing  hole,  and  no  child  so  boister 
ous  or  enthusiastic  or  resourceful  as  Jack,  "joyously  noisy 
with  life's  arrogance."  He  trained  them  to  box  and  to 
wrestle,  and  all,  instructor  and  pupils,  took  on  their  vary 
ing  gilds  of  sun-bronze  from  the  ardent  California  sky  that 
tanned  the  whole  land  to  warm  russet. 

I  am  suddenly  aware  of  the  fact  that  much  as  Jack 
shared  his  afternoons  in  sport  with  the  vacation  troops  of 
campers,  many  as  were  the  health-giving  things  of  flesh 


SUMMER  AT  GLEN  ELLEN  61 

and  spirit  which  he  taught  them,  not  one  learned  from  him 
in  the  sport  of  killing.  Nor  can  I  remember  him  ever 
going  out  hunting  in  this  period.  The  only  times  I  saw 
firearms  in  his  hands  were  at  intervals  when  we  all  prac 
tised  shooting  with  rifle  and  revolver  at  a  target  tacked 
against  the  end  of  an  ancient  ruined  dam  across  the  Sonoma, 
Once,  years  afterward,  in  southwesern  Oregon,  Jack  was 
taken  bear-hunting  in  the  mountains.  When  he  returned 
to  the  ranch-house  he  said : 

"Mate,  these  good  men  don't  know  what  to  make  of  me. 
They  offered  me  what  the  average  hunting  man  would  give 
a  year  of  his  life  to  have — the  chance  of  getting  a  bear. 
As  it  happened,  we  did  not  see  any  bear ;  but  coming  into 
a  clearing,  there  stood  the  most  gorgeous  antlered  buck 
you  ever  want  to  see,  on  a  little  ridge,  silhouetted  against 
the  sunset.  The  men  whispered  to  me  that  now  was  my 
chance.  They  were  fairly  trembling  with  anxiety  for  fear 
I  might  miss  such  a  perfect  shot.  And  I  didn't  even  raise 
my  gun.  I  just  couldn't  shoot  that  great,  glorious  wild 
thing  that  had  no  show  against  the  long  arm  of  my  rifle." 

So  the  children  at  Wake  Robin — how  little  a  child  will 
miss — resurrected  the  old  ditty  of  two  summers  gone,  about 
"The  kindest  friend  the  rabbits  ever  knew,"  and  loved 
their  big-hearted  play-friend  the  more. 

One  small  Oakland  shaver,  badly  out  of  sorts  with  his 
maternal  parent,  one  afternoon  began  "shying"  pebbles  at 
all  and  sundry.  After  every  one  else  had  gone  to  supper, 
Jack  excepted,  the  little  fellow  sullenly  turned  his  jaundiced 
attention  to  the  one  live  mark  remaining — friend  or  foe 
it  mattered  not.  Jack  admonished  him  to  stop,  but  instead 
he  selected  larger  missiles  and  went  on  firing  them.  Furi 
ous  because  Jack  laughingly  dodged  them  all,  the  mite 
jumped  up  and  down  in  baffled  wrath  and  shrieked:  "You 
hoodlum !  You  hoodlum ! ' ' 

"Now,  I  wonder,"  Jack  reflected  through  a  cloud  of 


62       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

cigarette  smoke  after  supper,  1 1  Where  he  heard  me  called  a 
hoodlum?" 

Again  recurring  to  Jack's  alleged  brutality,  I  smile  to 
think  how  considerate  he  usually  was.  In  all  the  rough- 
and-tumble  play  with  the  children  and  often  young  folk 
of  maturer  growth,  any  one  who  was  hurt  by  him  quickly 
smothered  the  involuntary  "ouch"  because  all  knew  it 
was  unintentional. 

With  the  girls  and  women — I  speak  from  long  ex 
perience.  Yes,  I  have  been  hurt — one  does  not  box  for  cool 
relaxation,  but  for  the  zest  of  rousing  the  good  red  blood 
and  setting  it  free  to  race  through  sluggish  veins  to  clear 
lungs  and  brain  and  give  one  a  new  lease  on  life.  To  Jack, 
who  loved  gameness  above  all  virtues,  it  was  his  proudest 
boast  that  on  two  or  three  occasions  gore  had  been  drawn 
from  one  or  the  other  of  our  respective  features;  but  it 
was  of  his  own  undoing  he  was  vainest,  because  "the  Kid- 
woman  squared  her  valiant  little  shoulders  and  stood  up 
with  her  eyes  wide  open  and  unafraid  and  delivered  and 
took  a  good  straight  left." 

The  point  I  am  leading  to  is  this:  I  never  was  even 
jarred  in  any  part  of  my  feminine  anatomy  that  Jack  knew 
was  taboo.  Allowing  that  a  woman's  head,  neck  and 
shoulders  are  about  all  it  is  permissible  for  her  opponent  to 
assail,  Jack,  with  greater  surface  to  cover  from  her  quick 
gloves,  worked  out  and  benefi tted  immeasurably  by  a  system 
of  defense  that  was  my  despair  and  that  few  men  could 
win  through. 

About  the  water  hole,  not  one  playfellow  but  would 
gladly  drop  the  strenuous  fun  to  listen  to  Jack  read  aloud ; 
and  sometimes  at  special  urging  from  the  charmed  ring,  he 
would  with  secret  gratification  respond  to  a  request  for 
some  story  of  his  own  making.  Joshua  Slocum's  "Voyage 
of  the  Spray"  came  in  for  its  turn,  and  suddenly,  one  day, 
Jack  laid  down  the  book  and  said  to  Uncle  Eoscoe  Eames : 

"If  Slocum  could  do  it  alone  in  a  thirty-five-foot  sloop, 


SUMMER  AT  GLEN  ELLEN  63 

with  an  old  tin  clock  for  chronometer,  why  couldn't  we  do  it 
in  a  ten-foot-longer  boat  with  better  equipment  and  more 
company!" 

Uncle  Eoscoe,  devoted  yachtsman  all  his  life,  and  to  all 
appearance  as  devoted  as  ever  at  nearly  sixty,  beamed  with 
interest.  The  two  fell  with  vim  to  comparing  models  of 
craft,  their  audience  open-mouthed  at  the  proposition.  All 
at  once  Jack  turned  to  me,  and  I  am  sure  there  was  no  mis 
giving  in  his  heart : 

"  What  do  you  say,  Charmian? — suppose  five  years  from 
now,  after  we're  married  and  have  built  our  house  some 
where,  we  start  on  a  voyage  around  the  world  in  a  forty- 
five  foot  yacht.  It'll  take  a  good  while  to  build  her,  and 
we've  got  a  lot  of  other  things  to  do  besides." 

"I'm  with  you,  every  foot  of  the  way,"  I  coincided, 
' '  but  why  wait  five  years  f  Why  not  begin  construction  in 
the  spring  and  let  the  house  wait?  No  use  putting  up  a 
home  and  running  right  away  and  leaving  it !  I  love  a  boat, 
you  love  a  boat;  let's  call  the  boat  our  house  until  we  get 
ready  to  stay  a  little  while  in  one  place.  We'll  never  be 
any  younger,  nor  want  to  go  any  more  keenly  than  right 
now. — You  know,"  I  struck  home,  "you're  always  remind 
ing  me  that  we  are  dying,  cell  by  cell,  every  minute  of  our 
lives!" 

"Hoist  by  my  own  petard,"  Jack  growled  facetiously, 
but  inwardly  approving. 

This  was  the  inception  of  the  SnarJc  voyage  idea,  most 
wonderful  of  all  our  glittering  rosary  of  adventurings. 

Aside  from  the  campers,  who  did  not  invade  his  sanc 
tuary,  Jack  saw  almost  no  visitors.  "One,"  he  told  a 
reporter,  "was  a  Eussian  Eevolutionist ;  the  other  I 
avoided!"  We  were  swinging  in  his  hammock  at  the  far 
end  of  "Jack's  House"  from  the  road,  when  we  glimpsed 
the  latter  unannounced  and  unwelcome  figure  on  the  path 
way  from  my  Aunt's  home.  Undetected,  we  slipped  from 
the  hammock,  and  kept  still  invisible  as  we  soft-padded 


64       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

around  the  cottage,  always  keeping  on  the  opposite  side 
from  the  searching  caller,  who  shortly  went  away.  "I'm 
going  to  put  up  two  signs  on  my  entrances, "  Jack  giggled. 
4 'On  the  front  door  will  be  read: 

NO  ADMISSION  EXCEPT  ON  BUSINESS; 
NO  BUSINESS  TRANSACTED  HERE. 

On  the  back: 

PLEASE  DO  NOT  ENTER  WITHOUT 
KNOCKING.    PLEASE  DO  NOT  KNOCK. " 

He  was  as  good  as  his  word.  I  lettered  the  legends, 
and  Manyoungi  nailed  them  up,  to  the  scandal  of  the  neigh 
bors.  But  this  summer  was  the  one  and  only  period  of  in- 
hospitality  of  any  length  in  Jack's  whole  life — an  instance 
when  he  really  wanted  to  be  let  alone — a  necessity  in  his 
development  at  that  phase.  A  few  months  later,  in  Bos 
ton,  he  gave  this  out  to  one  of  the  papers : 

"No,  I  do  not  care  for  society — much.  I  haven 't  the 
time.  And  besides,  society  and  I  disagree  as  to  how  I 
should  dress,  and  as  to  how  I  should  do  a  great  many 
other  things.  I  haven't  time  for  pink  teas,  nor  for  pink 
souls.  I  find  that  I  can  get  along  now  less  vexatiously 
and  more  happily  without  very  much  personal  dealing  with 
what  I  may  call  general  humanity.  Yet  I  am  not  a  hermit ; 
I  have  simply  reduced  my  visiting  list. ' ' 

Society  always  had  him  at  bay  about  his  clothing. 
Once  he  wrote :  "I  have  been  real,  and  did  not  cheat  reality 
any  step  of  the  way,  even  in  so  microscopically  small,  and 
comically  ludicrous,  a  detail  as  the  wearing  of  a  starched 
collar  when  it  would  have  hurt  my  neck  had  I  worn  it." 
How  he  would  have  bidden  to  his  heart  that  "Shaw  of 
Tailors,"  H.  Dennis  Bradley  of  London  Town,  who  wishes, 
amidst  other  current  post-bellum  reconstruction,  a  revolu 
tion  in  the  matter  of  starch:  "If  starch  is  a  food,"  he 


SUMMER  AT  GLEN  ELLEN  65 

adjures,  "for  goodness'  sake  eat  it;  do  not  plaster  it  on 
your  bosom  and  bend  it  round  your  neck.  The  war  has 
taught  the  value  of  soft  silken  shirts  and  collars;  and  we 
shall  not  return  to  the  Prussianism  and  the  Militarism  of 
the  blind,  unreasoning  'boiled'  shirt  without  a  murmur. " 

Now  and  again  Jack  tore  himself  from  his  happy  valley, 
to  lend  his  voice  to  the  Cause.  One  of  these  occasions  was 
on  May  22,  when  he  lectured  at  Maple  Hall,  at  Fourteenth 
and  Webster  Streets,  Oakland.  In  the  same  month  we  two 
rode  one  day  to  Santa  Eosa,  to  call  upon  Luther  Burbank, 
who  was  an  old  friend  of  my  family.  On  August  22,  to 
gether  he  and  I  traveled  to  San  Francisco  to  see  the  presen 
tation  of  a  one-act  play  done  by  Miss  Lee  Bascom,  "The 
Great  Interrogation, "  based  upon  Jack's  "Story  of  Jees 
Uck,"  from  Faith  of  Men  collection  . 

Jack,  as  collaborator,  was  ferreted  out  from  where  we 
had  made  ourselves  as  small  as  possible  in  the  Alcazar's 
gallery,  and  appeared  before  the  curtain  with  Miss  Bascom, 
to  whom  he  gallantly  attributed  whatever  excellence  the 
pleasing  drama  possessed. 

About  this  time  a  dramatization  of  "The  Sea  Wolf," 
which  was  unintentionally  farcical  in  the  extreme,  was  put 
on  at  an  Oakland  playhouse.  Catering  to  the  finicky  thea 
ter-goer,  the  playwright  had  introduced  a  chaperone,  who 
evidently  called  for  company  in  the  shape  of  an  ingenue. 
This  young  person  was  portrayed  by  no  other  than  the  win 
some  Ola  Humphrey,  of  Oakland,  whom  later  we  were  to 
know  in  Sydney,  Australia,  as  a  leading  woman,  and  still  in 
the  future  as  the  Princess  Ibrahim  Hassan. 

As  in  the  Alcazar,  Jack  chose  the  most  inconspicuous 
position  from  which  to  view  what  had  been  done  to  theme 
of  his.  On  the  present  occasion  he  remained  undiscov 
ered,  and  was  able  to  shed  his  tears  of  mirth  on  either 
shoulder  he  desired,  Sterling's  or  mine,  when  the  shrieking 
melodrama  became  too  much  for  his  control.  "0  Gawd! 
0  Gawd!"  he  mimicked  the  Ghost's  cook,  Muggridge;  and 


66       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

"If  they  should  hunt  me  out  and  get  me  on  the  stage,  what 
could  I  say  but  '0  Gawd!  0  Gawd!'  "  The  unfortunate 
Van  Weyden,  if  I  remember  aright,  chose  to  wear,  from 
rise  to  fall  of  curtain,  a  well  polished  pair  of  tan  shoes  for 
which  the  rigors  of  the  salt  sea  had  no  terrors. 

On  September  9,  Jack  went  to  Colma,  as  one  of  a  con 
stellation  of  The  Examiner's  star  writers,  to  do  the 
Britt-Nelson  prizefight.  It  was  in  the  course  of  this  write- 
up  he  coined  another  catch-phrase  that  went  into  the  lan 
guage  of  the  country,  as  "the  call  of  the  wild,"  "the  white 
silence, "  and  even  "the  game"  had  become  almost  house 
hold  words.  This  time  it  was  "the  abysmal  brute,"  to 
which  certain  pugilists  took  exception  until  they  came  to 
realize  the  author's  meaning — the  life  that  refuses  to  quit 
and  lie  down  even  after  consciousness  has  ceased. 

"By  *  abysmal  brute,'  "  Jack  would  extemporize,  "I 
mean  the  basic  life  deeper  than  the  brain  and  the  intellect  in 
living  things.  Intelligence  rests  upon  it;  and  when  intel 
ligence  goes,  it  still  remains.  The  abysmal  brute  life,"  he 
illustrated,  "that  causes  the  heart  of  a  gutted  dog-fish  to 
beat  in  one's  hand — you've  seen  them  do  that  when  we 
were  fishing  off  the  Key  Route  pier,"  I  was  reminded. 
"Or  the  beak  of  a  slain  turtle  to  close  and  bite  off  a  man's 
finger ;  it's  the  life  force  that  makes  a  fighter  go  on  fighting 
even  though  he  is  past  all  direction  from  his  intelligence. ' ' 
So  enamored  was  he  of  his  own  phrase  that  eight  years 
afterward  he  used  it  for  title  of  another  prize-fight  novel. 

In  addition  to  his  regular  work,  Jack  would  find  time 
to  review  a  book,  as  for  instance  "The  Long  Day,"  which 
critique  occupied  a  page  in  an  October  Examiner;  or  to 
contribute  an  article,  like  "The  Walking  Delegate,"  in  the 
May  28th  issue  of  the  same  paper. 

It  was  in  August  of  this  year  that  he  sent  to  Collier's 
Weekly  the  article  entitled  "Revolution,"  based  upon  the 
lecture.  He  had  already  sent  it  to  The  Cosmopolitan, 
but  owing  to  some  disagreement  upon  the  price  had  with- 


SUMMER  AT  GLEN  ELLEN  67 

drawn  the  manuscript.  This  article  was  published  in  Lon 
don  in  the  Contemporary  Review.  Jack's  letter  to  the 
Editor  of  Collier's  I  give  below: 

*  *  I  am  sending  you  herewith  an  article  that  may  strike  you  as  a 
regular  firebrand ;  but  I  ask  you  to  carry  into  the  reading  of  it  one 
idea,  namely,  that  the  whole  article  is  a  statement  of  fact.  There 
is  no  theory  about  it.  I  state  the  facts  and  the  figures  of  the  revo 
lution.  I  state  how  many  revolutionists  there  are,  why  they  are 
revolutionists,  and  their  views — all  of  which  are  facts. 

"It  seems  to  me  that  this  article  would  be  especially  apposite 
just  now,  following  upon  the  wholesale  exposures  of  graft  and 
rottenness  in  the  high  places,  which  have  of  late  filled  all  the  maga 
zines  and  newspapers.  It  is  the  other  side  of  the  shield.  It  is 
another  way  of  looking  at  the  question,  and  half  a  million  of  voters 
are  looking  at  it  in  this  way  in  the  United  States.  And  it  might 
be  interesting  to  the  capitalists  to  see  thus  depicted  this  great 
antagonistic  force  which  they,  by  their  present  graft  and  rotten 
ness,  are  not  doing  anything  to  fend  off.  But  rather  are  they 
encouraging  the  growth  of  this  antagonistic  force  by  their  own 
culpable  mismanagement  of  society. 

"Of  course,  should  you  find  it  in  your  way  to  publish  this 
article,  it  would  be  very  well  to  preface  it  with  an  editorial  note 
to  the  effect  that  it  is  a  statement  of  the  situation  by  an  avowed 
and  militant  socialist;  and  of  course  you  would  be  quite  welcome 
to  criticize  the  whole  article  in  any  way  you  saw  fit." 

All  those  bright,  vitalizing  months,  there  was  growing 
in  his  bosom  a  seed  sown  two  years  earlier  when  he  had 
come  to  love  Sonoma  Valley.  "The  Valley  of  the  Moon," 
he  called  it,  having  nnearthed  the  fact  that  Sonoma  stood 
for  "moon"  in  the  early  Indian  tongue  of  the  locality.  I 
have  since  heard  Sonoma  defined  as  "seven  moons,"  be 
cause,  driving  in  the  crescent  of  the  valley,  one  may  see 
seven  risings  of  the  orb  behind  the  waving  contours  of  the 
summits. 

His  eyes  roved  over  the  forested  mountainside,  and 
yearning  heightened  to  make  some  part  of  it  his  own,  for 


68       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

home  when  we  should  be  man  and  wife — his  very  own  while 
life  should  last.  But  it  appeared  not  to  be  for  sale.  One 
prospect  above  all  others  filled  our  eyes  whenever  we  rode 
side  by  side  up  a  certain  old  private  road — three  inexpress 
ibly  romantic  knolls  crowned  with  fir  and  redwood,  rosy- 
limbed,  blossom-perfumed  madrono,  and  scented  tapers  of 
the  buckeye — wooded  islets  rising  out  of  a  deep,  tossing  sea 
of  tree-tops.  And  one  day  a  neighbor  said : 

"Why,  those  knolls  there  belong  to  a  section  of  over  a 
hundred  acres  owned  by  Robert  P.  Hill  down  at  Eldridge, 
yonder,  the  next  station  below  Glen  Ellen.  Go  and  see  him, 
and  I  bet  he'll  sell  it  to  you.  I'm  sure  I  heard  it  could  be 
bought. " 

In  no  time  at  all,  Jack  was  possessor  of  one  hundred 
and  twenty-nine  acres  of  the  most  idyllic  spot  we  were  ever 
to  behold — later  to  be  glorified  in  his  novel i  '  Burning  Day 
light."  Its  irregular  diamond-shape  was  bounded  by  the 
magnificently  wooded  gorge  of  old  Asbury  Creek  to  the 
southeast,  and  the  whole  sweet  domain  was  wilderness  of 
every  sort  of  Californian  timber  and  shrubbery,  save  some 
forty  acres  of  cleared  land  that  had  once  yielded  wine- 
grapes  and  now  waved  with  grain. 

Jack  paid  $7000.00  for  the  property,  which  turned  out 
to  be  a  portion  of  the  original  grant  of  some  two  hundred 
square  miles  from  the  Mexican  Government  to  General 
Vallejo.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Hill  declare  to  this  day  that  they 
fear  Jack  could  probably  have  beaten  their  figure  if  he  had 
stood  out.  But  there  is  another  aspect  to  the  happening. 
Jack,  alas,  had  no  chance;  he  accused  me  of  precluding 
any  such  move  on  his  side,  by  any  unthinking  ravings  over 
the  land  in  question.  And  I  meekly  refrained  from  pro 
testing  when  he  excluded  me  from  all  business  sessions 
thereafter. 

Mrs.  Hill,  who  was  President  of  the  California  Wo 
man's  Federation  of  Clubs,  amongst  other  engaging  cus 
toms  displayed  the  one  of  welcoming  a  guest  with  both  her 


SUMMER  AT  GLEN  ELLEN  69 

hands  clasping  the  other's  one.  And  after  a  little  acquain 
tance  with  our  new  friends,  I  noticed  that  Jack  adopted 
the  gracious  habit  with  his  own  guests — quite  unknowingly, 
I  am  sure,  for  he  was  not  addicted  to  copying  manners. 
This  reminds  me  that  when  I  first  met  Jack  London,  it  was 
with  surprise  I  noted  that  he  shook  hands  rather  limply. 
It  must  have  been  a  reminiscence  of  childhood  diffidence; 
it  could  not  be  coldness,  for  he  radiated  warmth  and  sin 
cerity  from  head  to  foot.  Later,  I  had  dared  tell  him  of  my 
be-puzzlement,  and  found  that  he  had  no  idea  his  clasp  was 
not  a  hearty  one.  He  set  about  remedying  the  lack  of  firm 
ness.  Looking  through  his  1905  clipping  book,  I  come  upon 
this  from  an  interviewer  in  an  Iowa  town  where  Jack  had 
lectured : 

"The  words  and  hearty  clasp  were  with  boy-like  frank 
ness,  a  boy's  greeting  to  another  boy." 

We  called  it  our  Land  of  Dear  Delight,  but,  to  the 
world,  simply  The  Eanch.  What  Jack  thought  of  it,  and 
his  enthusiasm,  taking  the  place  of  his  old  unrest,  in  all 
the  simplest  details  of  his  new  farm,  is  indicated  in  his 
letters  to  George  Sterling  and  Cloudesley  Johns.  To 
George  he  wrote : 

' '  I  have  long  since  given  over  my  automobile  scheme ;  it  was  too 
damned  expensive  on  the  face  of  it,  and  I  have  long  since  decided 
to  buy  land  in  the  woods,  somewhere,  and  build.  .  .  .  For  over  a 
year,  I  have  been  planning  this  home  proposition,  and  now  I  am 
just  beginning  to  see  my  way  clear  to  it.  I  am  really  going  to 
throw  out  an  anchor  so  big  and  so  heavy  that  all  hell  could  never 
get  it  up  again.  In  fact,  it's  going  to  be  a  prodigious,  ponderous 

sort  of  an  anchor/' 

i 

What  the  neighbors  thought  of  the  transaction,  he  words 
in  "The  Iron  Heel :" 

1 '  Once  a  writer  friend  of  mine  had  owned  the  ranch.  .  .  .  He 
had  bought  the  ranch  for  beauty,  and  paid  a  round  price  for  it, 
much  to  the  disgust  of  the  local  farmers.  He  used  to  tell  with 


70       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

great  glee  how  they  were  wont  to  shake  their  heads  mournfully  at 
the  price,  to  accomplish  ponderously  a  bit  of  mental  arithmetic, 
and  then  to  say, '  But  you  can 't  make  six  per  cent  on  it. '  ' ' 

"Jack  London, 

"Glen  Ellen, 
"Sonoma  Co.,  Cal., 

"June  7,  1905. 
"Dear  Cloudesley: 

"Yea,  verily,  gorgeous  plans.  I  have  just  blown  myself  for 
129  acres  of  land.  I  '11  not  attempt  to  describe.  It 's  beyond  me. 

"Also,  I  have  just  bought  several  horses,  a  colt,  a  cow,  a  calf, 
a  plow,  harrow,  wagon,  buggy,  etc.,  to  say  nothing  of  chickens, 
turkeys,  pigeons,  etc.,  etc.  All  this  last  part  was  unexpected,  and 
has  left  me  flat  broke.  ...  I've  taken  all  the  money  I  could  get 
from  Macmillan  to  pay  for  the  land,  and  haven't  any  now  even  to 
build  a  barn  with,  much  less  a  house. 

"Haven't  started  *  White  Fang'  yet.  Am  writing  some  short 
stories  in  order  to  get  hold  of  some  immediate  cash." 

And  this  fragment  from  his  next,  dated  July  6,  1905: 

"As  regards  the  ranch — I  figure  the  vegetables,  firewood,  milk, 
eg-gs,  chickens,  etc.,  procured  by  the  hired  man  will  come  pretty 
close  to  paying  the  hired  man's  wages.  The  40  acres  of  cleared 
ground  (hay)  I  can  always  have  farmed  on  shares.  The  other 
fellow  furnishes  all  the  work,  seed,  and  care,  while  I  furnish  the 
land.  He  gets  %  of  crop  of  hay.  I  get  % — about  25  or  30  tons 
for  my  share. 

"I'm  going  swimming.  I  take  a  book  along,  and  read  and 
swim,  turn  and  turn  about,  until  6  P.M.  It  is  now  1  P.M. 

"Wolf." 

"August  30,  1905. 
"Dear  Cloudesley: 

".  .  .  By  the  way,  Collier's  has  accepted  *  Revolution.'  What 
d'ye  think  o'  that?  Robert  J.  Collier  wrote  the  letter  of  acceptance 
himself,  saying :  That  he  was  going  to  publish  my  fire-brand  as  a 
piece  of  literature,  even  if  it  did  lose  him  several  hundred  thousand 


SUMMER  AT  GLEN  ELLEN  71 

of  his  capitalistic  subscribers.  Also,  wanting  to  know  how  much 
I  asked  for  the  article,  he  said,  *  Don't  penalize  me  too  heavily 
for  my  nerve  in  publishing  it.' 

"I  am  racing  along  with  ' White  Fang.'  Have  got  about  45,000 
words  done,  and  hope  to  finish  it  inside  the  next  four  weeks,  when 
I  pull  East  on  the  lecturing-trip. 

"Have  you  read  Jimmy  Britt's  review  of  'The  Game'?  It  is 
all  right ! 

"Say,  read  'The  Divine  Fire,'  by  May  Sinclair,  and  then  get 
down  in  the  dust  at  her  feet.  She  is  a  master. 

Of  all  books  of  fiction  we  read  at  this  period,  "The 
Divine  Fire"  and  Eden  Phillpotts 's  "The  Secret  Woman" 
made  the  deepest  mark  upon  us  both. 

When  laying  foundation  for  a  novel,  Jack  would  isolate 
himself  for  the  forenoon,  in  a  hilly  manzanita  grove  adjoin 
ing  the  Wake  Eobin  acres — the  "wine-wooded  manzanita" 
he  named  it  in  "  All  Gold  Canyon. ' '  But  for  all  short  work 
he  made  his  notes  at  a  table  in  the  redwood-paneled  room 
where  he  worked  and  slept.  He  liked  music  while  he  com 
posed,  and  was  never  so  content  as  when  open  windows 
brought  my  practising  to  him  from  the  other  house. 

One  day,  returning  from  San  Francisco,  he  said: 
"We've  got  to  have  a  phonograph!"  "Awful!"  I  coun 
tered.  ' '  You  don 't  know  what  you  're  saying, ' '  he  reproved 
in  sparkling  tone.  "Pve  been  listening  for  hours  to  the 
most  wonderful  records,  and  there's  a  man  down  in  Glen 
Ellen  who  has  an  agency,  and  we  're  to  come  down  to-night 
and  hear  the  thing.  No — don't  say  a  word — you'll  go  per 
fectly  crazy  over  it!" 

I  did;  and  a  Victor  came  to  stay  at  Wake  Eobin,  sub 
sequently  sailing  with  us  to  the  South  Seas  with  one  hundred 
and  fifty  records  presented  by  the  manufacturers.  This 
music  Jack  also  liked  while  he  worked,  so  long  as  he  could 
not  distinguish  the  words  of  songs,  which  would  distract  his 
attention  from  the  words  he  was  juggling  with. 

At  that  time  he  cared  far  more  for  orchestral  than  for 


72       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

vocal  harmonies,  especially  the  Wagnerian  operas.  In  the 
latter,  as  well  as  in  qnite  a  repertory  of  other  operatic 
work,  he  had  been  well  coached  by  his  friend  Blanche  Part- 
ington,  musical  and  dramatic  critic  on  the  San  Francisco 
Call  for  seven  years,  who  had  taken  him  with  her  to  many 
performances.  I,  on  the  other  hand,  favored  the  voice 
records  above  the  instrumental.  After  several  years,  as 
one  manifestation  of  his  searching  into  the  human,  Jack 
leaned  more  and  more  to  the  voice,  until  he  seldom  put  on 
the  orchestral  disks. 

"Sept.  4, 1905. 
"Dear  Cloudesley: 

* '  So  you  're  going  to  begin  writing  for  money !  Forgive  me  for 
rubbing  it  in.  YouVe  changed  since  several  years  ago  when  you 
place  ART  first  and  dollars  afterward.  You  didn  't  quite  sym 
pathize  with  me  in  those  days. 

"After  all,  there's  nothing  like  life;  and  I,  for  one,  have  always 
stood,  and  shall  always  stand,  for  the  exalting  of  the  life  that  is 
in  me  over  Art,  or  any  other  extraneous  thing. 

"Wolf." 

George  Serling  had  affectionately  dubbed  him  "The 
Wolf, "  or  "  The  Fierce  Wolf, "  or  ' '  The  Shaggy  Wolf. ' '  In 
the  last  month  of  Jack  London 's  life,  he  gave  me  an  exqui 
site  tiny  wrist-watch.  "And  what  shall  I  have  engraved  on 
it!"  I  asked.  "Oh,  'Mate  from  Wolf/  I  guess, "  he  re 
plied.  And  I:  "The  same  as  when  we  exchanged  engage 
ment  watches !"  "Why,  yes,  if  you  don't  mind,"  he  ad 
mitted.  "I  have  sometimes  wished  you  would  call  me 
*  Wolf 'more  of  ten." 

"I  wish  I  had  called  you  'Wolf,'  then,"  I  said  remorse 
fully,  "since  you  would  have  liked  it.  But  it  seemed  pre 
ciously  George's  name  for  you,  and  that  is  why  I  seldom 
used  it. ' '  The  wee  Swiss  timepiece  was  lettered  according 
ly,  this  after  his  light  had  gone  out  forever,  for  I  had  not 
been  again  in  town. 

Jack  was  generous  about  helping  his  friends  out  in 


SUMMER  AT  GLEN  ELLEN  73 

time  of  need,  but  the  following,  to  one  of  them  in  October, 
shows  how  closely  he  was  running,  and  again  mentions  his 
intended  lecturing  trip : 

"To  buy  the  ranch  and  build  barn,  I  had  to  get  heavy  advances 
from  my  publishers.  I  had  already  overdrawn  so  heavily,  that 
they  asked  me,  and  in  common  decency  I  agreed,  to  pay  interest 
on  these  new  advances  made. 

"At  present  moment  my  check  book  shows  $207.83  to  my  credit 
at  the  bank.  It  is  the  first  of  the  month  and  I  have  no  end  of  bills 
awaiting  me,  prominent  among  which  are:  (Here  follows  list  of 
payments  to  his  own  mother,  his  children's  mother,  his  rent,  tools 
for  the  Ranch,  and  some  smaller  bills.) 

"Now,  I  have  to  pay  my  own  expenses  East.  Lecture  Bureau 
afterward  reimburses  me.  I  haven't  a  cent  coming  to  me  from 
any  source,  and  must  borrow  this  money  in  Oakland.  Also,  in 
November  I  must  meet  between  seven  and  eight  hundred  dollars 
insurance.  My  mother  wants  me  to  increase  her  monthly  allow 
ance.  So  does  B.  I  have  just  paid  hospital  bills  of  over  $100.00 
for  one  of  my  sisters.  Another  member  of  the  family,  whom  I  can 
not  refuse,  has  warned  me  that  as  soon  as  I  arrive  in  Oakland  he 
wants  to  make  a  proposition  to  me.  I  know  what  that  means. 

"And  I  have  promised  $30.00  to  pay  printing  of  appeal  to 
Supreme  Court  of  Joe  King,  a  poor  devil  in  Co.  Jail  with  50  yrs. 
sentence  hanging  over  him  and  who  is  being  railroaded. 

"And  so  on,  and  so  on,  and  so  on — Oh,  and  a  bill  for  over  $45.00 
to  the  hay  press.  So  you  see  that  I  am  not  only  sailing  close  to  the 
wind  but  that  I  am  dead  into  it  and  my  sails  flapping. ' ' 

"Fm  always  in  debt,"  Jack  said  to  Ashton  Stevens, 
who  interviewed  him  for  The  Examiner.  "Look  at  that 
hand!  See  where  the  light  comes  through  the  fingers? 
That  hand  leaks.  It  was  explained  to  me  by  the  Korean  boy 
that  took  me  through  Manchuria.  All  I'd  like  to  do  is  to  be 
able  to  get  enough  money  ahead  to  loaf  for  a  year — that's 
my  little  dream. " 

"And  buy  some  dress  shirts  and  evening  clothes?'*  Mr. 
Stevens  slyly  baited. 

1 1  Oh,  I  have  them, ' '  Jack  grinned ; ' ' I've  got  them.    But 


74  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

I'm  willing  to  put  'em  on  only  when  I  can't  get  in  without 
them.  I  loathe  the  things,  but  if  the  worst  comes  to  the 
worst  I've  got  'em;  I  insist  I've  got  'em." 

"Then  your  dream  of  rest  realized  wouldn't  be  all 
purple  teas?" 

"Indeed  it  would  not.  At  Glen  Ellen  I've  got  a  farm, 
and  I'm  going  to  build  a  house  and  a  lot  of  things;  it'll 
take  me  about  two  years  to  make  improvements  and  settle 
down.  And  then  I'm  going  to  build  a  forty-foot  sea-going 
yacht  and  with  two  or  three  others  cruise  around  the 
world.  We  '11  be  our  own  crew  and  cook  and  everything  else, 
and  the  first  port  will  be  twenty-one  hundred  miles  from 
San  Francisco — Honolulu.  Thence  on  and  on.  Maybe  I'll 
realize  on  that  trip  some  of  my  dream  of  rest. ' ' 

In  the  months  before  he  came  to  Glen  Ellen  that  year, 
he  would  ask  musical  friends  for  ' '  The  Garden  of  Sleep, ' '  a 
song  by  Clement  Scott  and  Isidore  de  Lara,  and  for  "Sing 
Me  to  Sleep,"  by  Clifton  Bingham  and  Edwin  Green.  As 
time  went  on,  he  called  upon  me  less  and  less  for  these  rest 
ful  melodies.  When  they  had  at  length  served  his  need, 
in  characteristic  manner  of  not  looking  backward,  he  was 
through  with  the  songs. 

Concerning  the  world  voyage,  he  wrote  to  Anna  Strun- 
sky: 

"You  remember  the  Spray  in  which  you  sailed  with  me  one 
day?  Well,  this  new  boat  will  be  six  or  seven  feet  longer  than  the 
Spray,  and  I  am  going  to  sail  her  around  the  world,  writing  as  I  go. 
Expect  to  be  gone  on  trip  four  or  five  years — around  the  Horn, 
Cape  of  Good  Hope,  Europe,  Asia,  Africa,  South  America,  Aus 
tralia,  and  everywhere  else. ' ' 

Jack's  "dream  of  rest"  had  more  than  once,  in  my  hear 
ing,  been  associated  with  death  itself.  Never  was  he  so 
happy,  he  who  at  the  same  time  so  exalted  life,  that  he 
could  not  descant  upon  the  repose  of  death.  One  of  my 
earliest  memories  of  him  is  such  a  remark  as  this : 


SUMMER  AT  GLEN  ELLEN  75 

"To  me  the  idea  of  death  is  sweet.  Think  of  it — to  lie 
down  and  go  into  the  dark  out  of  all  the  struggle  and  pain 
of  living — to  go  to  sleep  and  rest,  always  to  be  resting. 
Oh,  I  do  not  want  to  die  now — I'd  fight  like  the  devil  to 
keep  alive.  .  .  .  But  when  I  come  to  die,  it  will  be  smiling 
at  death,  I  promise  you." 

Early  in  our  married  life  I  entreated : 

u Don't,  don't  plan  so  many  great  things  that  you  will 
always  have  to  slave  for  the  means.  Make  your  money  and 
'  loaf '  for  a  while. ' '  But  in  all  the  years  we  were  together, 
the  day  of  living  rest  fled  before  him.  His  vast  plannings 
widened  as  widened  his  fund  of  knowledge — there  was  no 
horizon  at  any  point  of  his  compass.  So  I  came  to  give  up, 
and  cooperate  with  him  wherever  his  ambition  chose  to 
express  itself. 

Yes,  Jack  was  always  in  debt ;  but  never  to  the  point  of 
failing  to  see  his  way  out.  Which,  after  all,  is  merely  good 
business.  He  was  aware  of  his  augmenting  earning  power ; 
but  timid  ones  lacking  his  vision  refrained  from  depending 
upon  him  because  their  prognosis  was  that  he  would  fail 
through  poor  judgment.  And  yet,  after  his  death,  as  many 
as  depended  upon  him  in  lifetime  are  still  cared  for  by  his 
foresight — even  more  than  those.  Any  one  who  gave  voice 
to  the  opinion  that  Jack  London  was  a  poor  business  man 
was  a  source  of  irritation  to  him,  such  was  his  realization 
his  own  efficiency. 


CHAPTER  XXVH 

SECOND  MAEKIAGE ;  LECTURE  TRIP ;  BOSTON 
1905-1906 

II  is  of  record,  in  the  files  of  every  American  newspaper, 
that  the  final  decree  in  the  Jack  London  divorce  was 
granted  on  November  18,  1905 — this  after  a  separation  of 
two  and  a  half  years  between  the  parties  thereto.  Jack 
had  once  said  to  me : 

"  If  a  divorce  had  not  been  allowed  me,  I  would  not  have 
given  you  up — that  would  be  unthinkable.  We  would  have 
gone  somewhere,  if  you  would,  and  I  think  you  would — on 
the  other  side  of  the  world,  and  dignifiedly  lived  out  our 
lives,  '  on  the  square,  like  a  true  married  pair. '  ' ' 

But  this  was  thought  of  by  him  only  as  an  extreme. 
For,  as  in  most  considerations,  Jack  supported  law, 
holding  that  society  rested  upon  monogamy;  though  that 
all-round  mind  of  his  as  firmly  stood  behind  his  biology 
with  regard  to  man's  polygamous  place  in  the  animal  king 
dom.  "And  anyway,  our  love  and  mateship  is  of  the  stamp 
that  bonds  cannot  tire,  thank  God, ' '  he  would  rejoin.  Then, 
in  a  note :  "We  will  respect  the  world  and  the  way  of  the 
world. " 

Once,  out  of  a  spell  of  despondency  before  he  came  to 
Glen  Ellen,  Jack  wrote  me  a  letter  which  I  give  below,  so 
that  all  may  have  access  to  the  solid  foundation  upon  which 
reason  stood,  upholding  romantic  love : 

1 '  Dear,  dear  Woman : 

"Somehow,  you  have  been  very  much  in  my  thoughts  these  last 
few  days,  and  in  inexpressible  ways  you  are  dearer  to  me. 

76 


SECOND  MAEEIAGE;  LECTURE  TRIP          77 

"I  will  not  speak  of  the  mind-qualities,  the  soul-qualities — for 
somehow,  in  these,  in  ways  beyond  my  speech  and  thought,  you 
have  suddenly  loomed  colossal  in  comparison  with  the  ruck  of 
women. 

"Oh,  believe  me,  in  these  last  several  days  I  have  been  doing 
some  thinking,  some  comparing — and  I  have  been  made  aware,  not 
merely  of  pride,  and  greater  pride,  in  you,  but  of  delight  in  you. 
Dear,  dear  Woman,  Wednesday  night,  how  I  delighted  in  you,  for 
instance !  Of  course,  I  liked  the  look  of  you ;  but  outside  of  that, 
I  delighted — and  not  so  much  in  what  you  said  or  did,  as  in  what 
you  did  not  say  or  do.  You,  just  you — with  strength  and  surety, 
and  power  to  hold  me  to  you  for  that  old  peace  and  rest  which  you 
have  always  had  for  me.  I  am  more  confident  now  than  a  year  ago 
that  we  shall  be  happy  together.  I  am  rationally  confident. 

"God!  and  you  have  grit!  I  love  you  for  it.  You  are  my 
comrade  for  it.  And  I  mean  the  grit  of  the  soul. 

"And  the  lesser  grit — you  have  it,  too.  I  think  of  you  swim 
ming,  and  jumping,  and  diving,  and  my  arms  go  out  to  the  dear, 
sensitive,  gritty  body  of  yours,  as  my  arms  go  out  to  the  gritty  soul 
of  you  within  that  body. 

"'My  first  thought  in  the  morning  is  of  you,  my  last  thought  at 
night.  My  arms  are  about  you,  and  I  kiss  you  with  my  soul. 

"Your  Own  Man. " 

But  he  was  also  the  mad  lover,  gloriously,  boundlessly 
so.  As  witness  this,  written  three  weeks  before  our  wed 
ding,  after  he  had  gone  East : 

"Blessed  Mate: 

"I  do  not  think  that  I  have  yet  parted  with  you,  so  full  am  I, 
heart  and  soul,  with  the  vision  of  you. 

"Standards  are  nothing,  judgments  are  nothing;  I  need  not 
reason  about  you  except  in  the  simplest  way,  and  that  way  is  that 
you  mean  everything  to  me  and  are  more  to  me  than  any  woman 
I  have  ever  known. 

"Your  own  man, 

"The  Wolf." 

Editors  have  repeatedly  approached  me  on  the  subject 
of  publishing  Jack  London 's  letters  to  myself.  All  argu- 


78       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

ments  were  barren  of  result,  save  one:  that  Jack  London 's 
love  nature  is  little  known  or  reckoned  with  in  the  aver 
age  estimate  of  him ;  or,  worse,  misunderstood.  This  slant 
of  argument  of  course  had  not  been  unthought  of  by  ine. 
And  because  no  just  study  of  the  man  can  otherwise  be 
made,  I  present,  throughout  this  book,  the  letters  I  have 
chosen  from  the  uncounted  ones  in  my  possession.  Below 
I  quote  the  very  first  in  which  he  mentions  his  regard,  some 
thing  that  had  theretofore  been  undreamed  of  by  me.  We 
had  been  discussing  something  about  my  own  make-up 
which  he  said  had  always  eluded  him — and  I  had  gathered 
that  it  was  not  especially  complimentary.  My  curiosity 
being  aroused,  I  wrote  and  asked  him  if  he  could  not  defi 
nitely  word  his  feeling.  Here  is  the  reply : 

''I  see  that  what  I  spoke  of  worries  you.  It  would  worry  me 
equally,  I  am  sure,  did  it  come  from  a  friend.  But  the  very  point 
of  it  was  that  I  did  not  know  what  it  was.  If  I  had,  I  should  not 
have  brought  it  up.  If  you  will  recollect,  it  was  one  of  the  lesser 
puzzles  of  your  make-up  to  which  I  merely  casually  referred. 
None  of  your  guesses  hits  it :  I  have  seen  and  measured  your  '  in 
ordinate  fondness'  for  pretty  things  and  for  the  correct  thing. 
These  are  logical  and  consistent  in  you,  and  the  fact  that  they 
are  arouses  nothing  but  satisfaction  in  me.  I  referred  to  something 
I  did  not  know,  something  I  felt  as  I  felt  the  vision  of  you  crying 
in  the  grass.  Perhaps  I  used  the  word  'conventionality'  for  lack 
of  adequate  expression,  for  the  same  reason  that  I  spoke  from  lack 
of  comprehension.  A  something  felt  of  something  no  more  than 
potential  in  you  and  of  which  I  had  seen  no  evidences.  If  you  fail 
to  follow  me  I  am  indeed  lost,  for  I  have  strained  to  give  definite 
utterance  to  a  thing  remote  and  obscure. 

"You  speak  of  frankness.  I  passionately  desire  it,  but  have 
come  to  shrink  from  the  pain  of  intimacies  which  bring  the  greater 
frankness  forth.  Superficial  frankness  is  comparatively  easy,  bu 
one  must  pay  for  stripping  off  the  dry  husks  of  clothing,  the  self- 
conventions  which  masque  the  soul,  and  for  standing  out  naked  in> 
the  eyes  of  one  who  sees.  I  have  paid,  and  like  a  child  who  has 
been  burned  by  fire,  I  shrink  from  paying  too  often.  You  surely 


SECOND  MAEBIAGE;  LECTURE  TRIP          79 

have  known  such  franknesses  and  the  penalties  you  paid.  When 
I  found  heart's  desire  speaking  clamorously  to  you,  I  turned  my 
eyes  away  and  strove  to  go  on  with  my  superficial  self,  talking,  I 
know  not  what.  And  I  did  it  consciously — partly  so,  perhaps — • 
and  I  did  it  automatically,  instinctively.  Memories  of  old  pains, 
incoherent  hurts,  a  welter  of  remembrances,  compelled  me  to  close 
the  mouth  whereby  my  inner  self  was  shouting  at  you  a  summons 
bound  to  give  hurt  and  to  bring  hurt  in  return. 

"I  wonder  if  I  make  you  understand.  You  see,  in  the  objective 
facts  of  my  life  I  have  always  been  frankness  personified.  That 
I  tramped  or  begged  or  festered  in  jail  or  slum  meant  nothing  by 
the  telling.  But  over  the  lips  of  my  inner  self  I  had  long  since  put 
a  seal — a  seal  indeed  rarely  broken,  in  moments  when  one  caught 
fleeting  glimpses  of  the  hermit  who  lived  inside.  How  can  I  begin 
to  explain?  .  .  .  My  child  life  was  uncongenial.  There  was  little 
responsive  around  me.  I  learned  reticence,  an  inner  reticence. 
I  went  into  the  world  early,  and  I  adventured  among  different 
classes.  A  newcomer  in  any  class,  I  naturally  was  reticent  con 
cerning  my  real  self,  which  such  a  class  could  not  understand, 
while  I  was  superficially  loquacious  in  order  to  make  my  entry 
into  such  a  class  popular  and  successful.  And  so  it  went,  from 
class  to  class,  from  clique  to  clique.  No  intimacies,  a  continuous 
hardening,  a  superficial  loquacity  so  clever,  and  an  inner  reticence 
so  secret,  that  the  one  was  taken  for  the  real,  and  the  other  never 
dreamed  of. 

"Ask  people  who  know  me  to-day,  what  I  am.  A  rough, 
savage  fellow,  they  will  say,  who  likes  prizefights  and  brutalities, 
who  has  a  clever  turn  of  pen,  a  charlatan's  smattering  of  art,  and 
the  inevitable  deficiencies  of  the  untrained,  unrefined,  self-made 
man  which  he  strives  with  a  fair  measure  of  success  to  hide  beneath 
an  attitude  of  roughness  and  unconventionality.  Do  I  endeavor 
to  unconvince  them?  It's  so  much  easier  to  leave  their  convictions 
alone. 

"And  now  the  threads  of  my  tangled  discourse  draw  together. 
I  have  experienced  the  greater  frankness,  several  times,  under 
provocation,  with  a  man  or  two,  and  a  woman  or  two,  and  the  oc 
casions  have  been  great  joy-givers,  as  they  have  also  been  great 
sorrow-givers.  I  do  not  wish  they  had  never  happened,  but  I  re 
coil  unconsciously  from  their  happening  again.  It  is  so  much  easier 


80       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

to  live  placidly  and  complacently.  Of  course,  to  live  placidly  and 
complacently  is  not  to  live  at  all,  but  still,  between  prizefights  and 
kites  and  one  thing  and  another  I  manage  to  fool  my  inner  self 
pretty  well.  Poor  inner  self!  I  wonder  if  it  will  atrophy,  dry 
up  some  day  and  blow  away. 

"  This  is  the  first  serious  talk  I  have  had  about  myself  for  a 
weary  while.  I  hope  my  flood  of  speech  has  not  bored  you. 

"When  may  I  see  you?" 

When,  so  shortly  afterward,  we  had  discovered,  almost 
as  with  love-at-first-sight,  the  great  glory  that  was  rising 
in  us,  this  was  his  next  message — a  burst  of  sunshine  after 
dark  days : 

1 1 1  am  dumb  this  morning.  I  do  not  think.  I  do  not  think  at  all. 
Talk  of  analysis!  I  should  have  to  get  a  year  or  so  between  me 
and  the  last  of  you  in  order  to  generalize,  in  order  to  answer  the 
everlasting  query:  'What  is  it  all  aloutf 

"What  IS  it  all  about?  I  do  not  know.  I  know  only  that  I 
am  off  my  feet  and  drifting  with  the  tide;  drifting  and  singing, 
but  it  is  a  flood  tide  and  the  song  a  psean. 

"Younger?  I  am  twenty  years  younger.  So  young  that  I  am 
too  lazy  to  work.  I  am  lying  here  in  the  hammock  thinking  dreamily 
of  you.  No,  I  am  not  lazy  at  all.  I  am  doing  no  work  because  I 
am  incapable  of  doing  it.  Wherever  I  look  I  see  you.  I  close 
my  eyes  and  hear  you,  and  still  see  you.  I  try  to  gather  my 
thoughts  together  and  I  think — You.  But  it  is  not  a  thought — 
it  is  a  picture  of  you,  a  vision — a  something  as  objective  and  real 
as  when  I  used  to  see  you  crying  in  the  grass. 

"An  hour  has  passed  since  I  wrote  the  last  word.  I  am  still 
in  the  hammock,  and  what  I  have  written  is  the  history  of  that 
hour,  as  it  is  of  all  the  other  hours. 

1 '  Well,  they  are  good  hours.  Though  I  never  saw  you  again,  the 
memory  of  them  would  be  sweet.  To  have  lived  them,  here  in  the 
hammock,  is  to  have  lived  well  and  high.' ' 

And  again:  "This  I  know — that  you  will  come  to  me,  some 
time,  some  where.  It  is  inevitable.  The  hour  is  already  too 
big  to  become  anything  less  than  the  biggest.  We  cannot  fail, 
diminish,  fall  back  into  night  with  the  dawn  thus  in  our  eyes. 


190G.     JACK  LONDON  AND  ALEXANDER  IRVINE  AT  YALE  UNIVERSITY 


SECOND  MARRIAGE;  LECTURE  TRIP          81 

For  it  is  no  false  dawn.  Our  eyes  are  dazzled  with  it,  and  our  souls. 
We  know  not  what,  and  yet  WE  KNOW.  The  life  that  is  in  us 
knows.  It  is  crying  out,  and  we  cannot  close  our  ears  to  its  cry. 
It  is  reaching  out  yearning  arms  that  know  the  truth  and  secret 
of  living  as  we,  apart  from  it  and  striving  to  reason  it,  do  not 
know.  0  my  dear,  we  give  and  live,  we  withhold  and  die. 

"You  may  laugh  and  protest,  but  you  ARE  big.  A  thousand 
things  prove  it  to  me — to  me  who  never  needed  the  proof.  I  knew — 
knew  from  the  first.  I,  who  have  felt  and  sounded  my  way  through 
life  like  some  mariner  on  a  fog-bound  coast,  have  never  felt  nor 
sounded  when  with  you.  I  knew  you  from  the  first,  knew  you  and 
accepted  you.  This  is  why,  when  the  time  for  speech  came,  there 
was  no  need  for  speech. 

"I  do  not  know  if  I  shall  see  you  to-night,  and,  such  is  the 
certitude  of  our  tangled  destiny,  I  hardly  think  I  care.  Did  I 
doubt,  it  would  be  different.  But  it  must  be  so,  I  know,  not 
sooner  or  later,  but  soon.  It  is  the  will  of  your  life  and  mine  that 
it  shall  be  so,  and  we  are  not  so  weak  that  we  cannot  keep  faith  with 
the  truth  and  the  best  that  is  in  us. 

"You  are  more  kin  to  me  than  any  woman  I  have  ever  known. " 

The  next  letter  gives  a  deathless  picturing  of  Jack  Lon 
don's  loneliness  of  old  and  his  new-found  happiness : 

* '  Do  you  know  a  happy  moment  you  have  given  me — a  wonder 
ful  moment  ?  When  you  sat  looking  into  my  eyes  and  repeated  to 
me :  *  You  are  more  kin  to  me  than  any  woman  I  have  ever  known. ' 
That  those  words  should  have  shaped  to  you  the  one  really  great 
thought  in  the  letter,  the  thought  most  vital  to  me  and  to  my  love 
for  you,  stamped  our  kinship  irrevocably.  Surely  we  are  very  One, 
you  and  I ! 

"Shall  I  tell  you  a  dream  of  my  boyhood  and  manhood? — a 
dream  which  in  my  rashness  I  thought  had  dreamed  itself  out  and 
beyond  all  chance  of  realization?  Let  me.  I  do  not  know,  now, 
what  my  other  loves  have  been,  how  much  of  depth  and  worth 
there  were  in  them;  but  this  I  know,  and  knew  then,  and  know 
always — that  there  was  a  something  greater  I  yearned  after,  a  some 
thing  that  beat  upon  my  imagination  with  a  great  glowing  light 
and  made  those  woman-loves  wan  things  and  pale,  oh  so  pitiably 
wan  and  pale ! 


82       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

"I  have  held  a  woman  in  my  arms  who  loved  me  and  whom  I 
loved,  and  in  that  love-moment  have  told  her,  as  one  will  tell  a  dead 
dream,  of  this  great  thing  I  had  looked  for,  looked  for  vainly,  and 
the  quest  of  which  I  had  at  last  abandoned.  And  the  woman  grew 
passionately  angry,  and  I  should  have  wondered  had  I  not  known 
how  pale  and  weak  it  made  all  of  her  that  she  could  ever  give  me. 

"For  I  had  dreamed  of  the  great  Man-Comrade.  I,  who  have 
been  comrades  with  many  men,  and  a  good  comrade  I  believe,  have 
never  had  a  comrade  at  all,  and  in  the  deeper  significance  of  it 
have  never  been  able  to  be  the  comrade  I  was  capable  of  being. 
Always  it  was  here  this  one  failed,  and  there  that  one  failed  until 
all  failed.  And  then,  one  day,  like  Omar, '  clear-eyed  I  looked,  and 
laughed,  and  sought  no  more. '  It  was  plain  that  it  was  not  possible. 
I  could  never  hope  to  find  that  comradeship,  that  closeness,  that 
sympathy  and  understanding,  whereby  the  man  and  I  might  merge 
and  become  one  in  understanding  and  sympathy  for  love  and  life. 

"How  can  I  say  what  I  mean?  This  man  should  be  so  much 
one  with  me  that  we  could  never  misunderstand.  He  should  love 
the  flesh,  as  he  should  the  spirit,  honoring  and  loving  each  and 
giving  each  its  due.  There  should  be  in  him  both  fact  and  fancy. 
He  should  be  practical  insofar  as  the  mechanics  of  life  were  con 
cerned;  and  fanciful,  imaginative,  sentimental  where  the  thrill  of 
life  was  concerned.  He  should  be  delicate  and  tender,  brave  and 
game ;  sensitive  as  he  pleased  in  the  soul  of  him,  and  in  the  body 
of  him  unfearing  and  unwitting  of  pain.  He  should  be  warm  with 
the  glow  of  great  adventure,  unafraid  of  the  harshnesses  of  life  and 
its  evils,  and  knowing  all  its  harshness  and  evil. 

"Do  you  see,  my  dear  one,  the  man  I  am  trying  to  picture 
for  you! — an  all-around  man,  who  could  weep  over  a  strain  of 
music,  a  bit  of  verse,  and  who  could  grapple  with  the  fiercest  life 
and  fight  good-naturedly  or  like  a  fiend  as  the  case  might  be.  ... 
the  man  who  could  live  at  the  same  time  in  the  realms  of  fancy 
and  of  fact ;  who,  knowing  the  frailties  and  weaknesses  of  life,  could 
look  with  frank  fearless  eyes  upon  them ;  a  man  who  had  no  small- 
nesses  or  meannesses,  who  could  sin  greatly,  perhaps,  but  who 
could  as  greatly  forgive. 

"I  spend  myself  in  verbiage,  trying  to  express  in  a  moment 
or  two,  on  a  sheet  of  paper,  what  I  have  been  years  and  years  a- 
dreaming. 


SECOND  MAEEIAGE;  LECTURE  TRIP          83 

"As  I  say,  I  abandoned  the  dream  of  the  great  Man-Comrade 
who  was  to  live  Youth  with  me,  perpetual  Youth  with  me,  down  to 
the  grave.  And  then  You  came,  after  your  trip  abroad,  into  my 
life.  Before  that  I  had  met  you  quite  perfunctorily,  a  couple  of 
times,  and  liked  you.  But  after  that  we  met  in  fellowship,  though 
somewhat  distant  and  not  so  very  frequently,  and  I  liked  you  more 
and  more.  It  was  not  long  before  I  began  to  find  in  you  the  some 
thing  all-around  that  I  had  failed  to  find  in  any  man;  began  to 
grow  aware  of  that  kinship  that  was  comradeship,  and  to  wish  you 
were  a  man.  And  there  was  a  loneliness  about  you  that  appealed 
to  me.  This,  perhaps,  by  some  unconscious  cerebration,  may  have 
given  rise  to  my  vision  of  you  in  the  grass. 

"And  then,  by  the  time  I  was  convinced  of  the  possibility  of  a 
great  comradeship  between  us,  and  of  the  futility  of  attempting 
to  realize  it,  something  else  began  to  creep  in — the  woman  in  you 
twining  around  my  heart.  It  was  inevitable.  But  the  wonder  of 
it  is  that  in  a  woman  I  should  find,  not  only  the  comradeship  and 
kinship  I  had  sought  in  men  alone,  but  the  great  woman-love  as 
well;  and  this  woman  is  YOU,  YOU!" 

Let  himself  say  what  Love  meant  to  him : 

"Once  you  strove  to  write  me  a  love  letter — with  tolerable  suc 
cess.  But  you  have  now  written  me  a  love  letter.  When  it  came 
this  morning,  and  I  read  it,  I  was  mad — mad  with  sheer  joy  and 
desire.  The  bonds  tighten,  my  love;  we  grow  closer  and  closer. 
Ah,  God.  You  are  so  close  to  me  now,  so  dear,  so  dear.  You  are 
in  my  thought  all  the  time.  I  am  swimming,  and  as  I  poise  for  a 
dive,  I  ^ause  a  fleeting  second  to  think  of  you.  No  matter  what 
I  do,  no,;,  I  make  the  little  pause  and  think  of  you.  I  do  it  when 
I  am  working,  when  I  am  reading,  when  people  are  talking  to  me. 
At  all  times  it  is  you,  you,  you. 

"Love?  I  thought  I  was  capable  of  a  great  love,  as  one  will 
think,  you  know.  But  I  never  dreamed  so  great  a  love  as  this.  I 
have  stood  on  my  own  feet  all  the  years  of  my  life,  was  independent, 
self-sufficient.  Men  and  women  were  pleasant,  of  course,  but  they 
were  not  necessary.  I  could  get  along  without  them.  I  could  not 
conceive  a  time  when  I  could  not  get  along  without  them.  But 
the  time  has  come.  Without  you  I  am  nowhere,  nothing,  You 


84       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

are  the  breath  of  life  in  my  nostrils.  Without  you,  and  without 
hope  of  having  you,  I  should  surely  die.  Oh,  woman,  woman,  how 
I  do  love  you. 

"I  have  no  doubt,  now,  of  your  love  for  me.  You  do  love  me, 
must  love,  or  life  is  false  as  hell  and  there  is  no  sanity  in  anything. 
But  I  do  not  measure  your  love  thus.  I  just  know  you  love  me. 

'  *  I  write  this  while  people  wait ;  and  I  kiss  you  thus,  and  thus, 
on  the  lips,  and  hair,  and  brow — thus,  and  thus. ' ' 

Before  even  dreaming  of  coming  into  the  country  to 
live,  Jack  had  pledged  himself  to  lecture  in  the  east  and  mid 
dle  west.  He  had  never  really  enjoyed  public  speaking, 
but  was  bent  upon  hunting  a  protracted  session  of  it — a  first 
and  last  tour.  Moreover,  and  very  important,  here  was  op 
portunity  to  spread  propaganda  for  the  Cause,  and  it  was 
stipulated  with  the  Lyceum  Bureau  that  he  should  be  at 
liberty  to  expound  Socialism  wherever  and  whenever  it 
did  not  conflict  with  his  regular  dates. 

As  our  Indian  Summer  drew  on,  however,  more  and 
more  he  fretted  that  he  must  pull  up  stakes  and  tear  him 
self  from  the  happy  camp  that  had  wrought  so  marvelously 
upon  him.  But  the  third  week  in  October  saw  him  on  his 
strenuous  way,  having  demanded  expenses  for  two,  that 
Manyoungi  might  relieve  him  of  all  distracting  personal 
details.  My  face  laughed  into  his  from  the  inside  cover 
of  that  thin  gold  watch  I  had  given  him ;  and  one  unf orgot- 
ten  item  of  luggage  was  an  exquisite  miniature  of  his  two 
little  girls  which  he  had  had  painted  by  Miss  Wishaar 
months  before. 

Shortly  after  his  departure,  I,  too,  did  some  packing — 
of  a  simple  trousseau  in  the  pretty  bureau-trunk  Jack  had 
presented  me.  This  trunk  was  the  result  of  one  of  his  ad 
vertisement-answering  hazards,  as  was  one  of  the  early 
models  of  wardrobe-trunk.  The  latter  was  so  tall  that, 
after  expending  more  than  its  original  cost  in  excess-length 
charges,  he  had  the  thing  cut  down  to  regulation  sige. 

In  Newton,  Iowa,  I  visited  my  friend  Mrs.  Will  Me- 


SECOND  MAEEIAGE;  LECTURE  TRIP          85 

Murray,  for  a  November  25  lecture  had  been  scheduled  for 
the  college  town  of  Grinnell,  but  a  short  distance  from  New 
ton;  and  it  was  our  intention  to  be  married  at  the  Mc- 
Murrays'  and  spend  with  them  an  idle  week  occurring  in 
the  tour.  But  the  lecturer,  fulfilling  an  engagement  with 
the  People's  Institute  in  Elyria,  Ohio,  upon  receiving  a  tele 
gram  from  California  that  he  was  entirely  free,  decided  on 
the  spur  of  the  moment  not  to  delay  until  the  Grinnell  date. 

On  the  eve  of  the  19th,  I  had  his  wire  in  hand  for  me  to 
be  in  Chicago  the  next  night,  since  he  was  to  pass  through 
on  the  way  to  lecture  in  Wisconsin.  Being  Sunday,  he  was 
obliged  to  arrange  a  special  license  with  the  County  Clerk 
of  Cook  County.  And  when  in  obedience  to  his  summons  I 
stepped  off  my  train  in  the  Windy  City  at  nine  of  the  eve 
ning,  three  hours  behind-time,  a  very  weary  but  happily 
patient  bridegroom  elect  was  pacing  the  station  pavement. 
In  his  pocket  was  the  license,  in  mine  my  mother's  wedding- 
ring  ;  and  at  the  curb  waited  two  hansom  cabs,  one  contain 
ing  an  interested  and  beaming  Manyoungi,  who  wanted  to 
see  an  American  wedding. 

The  informal  suddenness  and  speed  of  this  termination 
to  our  courtship  savored  of  the  age  of  chivalry,  when  knight- 
errant  with  doughty  right  arm  slung  his  lady  love  across 
the  saddle  bow  on  a  foaming  black  charger.  Let  none  say 
that  ours  was  less  romantic.  What  mattered  it  that  our 
vows  were  spoken  in  a  civil  ceremony!  After  Notary 
Public  J.  J.  Grant  had  made  us  one,  we  drove  to  the  old 
Victoria  Hotel  where  Jack  interlined  'Mrs.  Jack  London" 
between  his  and  Manyoungi  *s  signatures  registered  the 
previous  day.  I  meanwhile,  by  another  entrance,  slipped 
upstairs. 

No  one  connected  intimately  with  this  "most  advertised 
writer  in  America"  could  hope  to  escape  the  more  or  less 
notorious  consequences.  By  me  it  had  to  be  regarded  as 
part  of  the  game,  if  I  were  to  observe  my  responsibilities. 
Therefore  my  philosophy  of  life  had  fortified  me  against 


86       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

the  worst.  Before  Jack  could  procure  his  key,  he  was  way 
laid  by  three  newspapermen — but  they  chanced  to  be  merely 
in  search  of  items  about  his  trip  and  his  books.  But  a 
fourth  had  discovered  the  hardly-dry  interpolation  on  the 
register,  and  hovered  anxiously  about  the  quartette  to  learn 
if  he  was  the  only  sleuth  who  had  made  the  find.  Jack 
sensed  the  situation,  and  presently  excused  himself  and  ran 
upstairs.  In  three  minutes  the  four  reporters  were  at  our 
door,  imploring  an  interview.  Eeenforcements  began  to  ar 
rive,  and  into  the  small  hours  besieged  by  knocks,  notes, 
telegrams,  cards,  telephone  calls  from  the  hotel  office — 
streams  of  entreaties  in  every  guise  flowing  under  the  door 
and  over  wire  and  transom.  To  all  of  which  my  husband 
remained  deaf  and  dumb,  for  he  must  scrupulously  redeem 
his  promise  made  months  before,  to  give  the  Hearst  papers 
the  "  scoop "  in  return  for  their  discretion.  This  he  had 
done  on  Saturday,  and  the  Chicago  American  city  editor, 
Mr.  Harstone,  was  instrumental  in  obtaining  the  special  li 
cense;  also,  with  a  reporter,  Mr.  Harstone  had  served  as 
witness  to  the  ceremony. 

The  appeal  which  came  nearest  to  stirring  Jack  was  the 
whispered  and  written :  i  i  Come  on  through  with  the  news, 
old  man — be  merciful;  we've  got  to  get  it.  You're  a  news 
paperman  yourself,  you  know.  Come  across  and  help  us 
out." 

When  the  Chicago  American  had  appeared  Monday 
morning  with  the  heavily  leaded  item,  the  disappointed 
dailies  sent  representatives  to  call  upon  the  bride  and 
groom;  and  I  must  take  occasion  to  congratulate  those 
gentlemen  upon  the  good-natured  courtesy  which  cloaked 
their  chagrin.  Nevertheless,  the  end  was  not  yet.  Vengeance 
was  theirs.  On  Tuesday  morning,  coming  back  into  Chi 
cago  from  Geneva  Falls,  Wisconsin,  on  the  business-men's 
train,  we  had  slipped  into  a  rearmost  seat.  What  was 
our  horror  to  behold,  upthrust  before  the  greedy  eyes  of 
"commuters"  the  entire  length  of  the  car,  full-page  photo- 


SECOND  MARRIAGE;  LECTURE  TRIP         87 

graphs  of  ourselves  with  large  headlines  announcing  Jack 
London's  marriage  "Invalid." 

"What  the  hell!"  spluttered  Jack,  laughing  in  spite  of 
himself.  "The  other  sheets  are  getting  even.  We're  in  for 
it!"  and  thereupon  delivered  himself:  "A  fellow's  got  to 
pay  through  the  nose  for  being  loyal  to  his  own  crowd!" 
They  won't  stop  to  consider  that  I'd  have  done  the  same  for 
them,  if  most  of  my  newspaper  work  had  been  for  them!" 

The  "other  sheets"  had  merely  endeavored  to  tangle 
the  divorce  laws  of  California  and  Illinois;  but  a  noted 
Judge  pronounced  all  straight.  The  Chicago  American  gave 
due  space  to  the  refutation,  and  we  went  on  our  path  rejoic 
ing.  But  for  weeks  we  could  not  pick  up  a  paper,  great  or 
small,  that  did  not  contain  publicity  of  one  sort  or  another 
concerning  the  most  advertised  writer  in  America — whether 
reviews  of  his  books,  of  our  marriage,  of  the  lectures,  the 
round-the-world  yacht  voyage,  the  Ranch,  and  what  not. 

Jack  maintained  to  all  interviewers, ' '  If  my  marriage  is 
not  legal  in  Illinois,  I  shall  re-marry  my  wife  in  every  state 
in  the  Union ! ' ' 

A  comical  thing  happened  in  California,  when  one  of 
Jack's  little-girl  swimming  pupils  hurriedly  scanned  the 
title,  * '  Jack  London 's  Marriage  Invalid. ' '  Hastening  to  her 
mother,  in  accents  of  distress  she  cried: 

"Oh,  mama,  mama,  how  awful!  Mr.  London  did  not 
marry  Miss  Kittredge  after  all!  This  paper  says  he's 
married  an  invalid!" 

One  day,  from  Lynette  McMurray's  parlor,  there  issued 
Jack's  irrepressible  snicker,  increasing  to  a  wild  call  for 
me: 

"Oh,  I've  got  you  now,  Mate  Woman!  You  can  never 
look  me  in  the  face  again  after  you  hear  this!"  And  pro 
ceeded  to  read  aloud  a  libelous  squib  from  a  Washington, 
Iowa,  weekly  paper.  It  was  to  the  effect  that  the  "ugly- 
faced  girl  from  California,  so  ugly  that  the  children  on  the 
streets  of  Newton  ran  screaming  to  their  mothers  when- 


88       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

ever  she  passed  by,  had  married  Jack  London.  That  it 
was  reported  the  pair  were  soon  to  go  to  sea  in  a  small  boat, 
to  be  gone  for  years.  That  it  would  be  a  mercy  to  everybody 
if  they  were  drowned  at  sea  and  never  came  back. ' ' 

"Yon  think  I'm  making  it  up,  don't  you!"  Jack  read 
my  scornful  face.  "But  here — look  at  it! — why,  the  old 
sour-ball — the  wretched  old  slob!  I  wonder  what  he'd 
had  for  breakfast!" 

But  it  was  I  who  first  happened  upon  a  reference  to  Jack 
London  as  being  possessed  of  a  ' '  bilaterally  asymetrical 
countenance,"  and  it  may  correctly  be  assumed  that  I 
pressed  the  same  home  with  all  dispatch. 

"I'm  NOT  bilaterally  asymetrical,  though,"  indignantly 
he  defended;  "and  anyway,  I  don't  know  what  bilaterally 
asymetrical  means.  Take  a  look  at  me,"  studying  himself 
in  my  hand-mirror.  "I'd  say  my  features  are  fairly 
straight  .  .  .  The  man  that  said  bilaterally  asymetrical  was 
looking  for  a  chance  to  work  off  the  expression!" 

The  time  Jack  was  really  sorry  for  his  wife  was  in 
1909,  in  Hobart,  Tasmania,  when  another  reporter  with 
something  funny  to  work  off,  wrote:  "Jack  London's 
speech  is  as  that  of  an  American  with  an  Oxford  education ; 
but  as  for  Mrs.  London,  hers  is  Americanese,  undefiled,  and 
unfiled."  What  irritated  Jack  in  this  instance  was:  "But 
you  didn't  open  your  head;  and  the  man  scarcely  saw  you, 
there  in  the  dark  of  the  carriage ! ' ' 

From  November  26  until  December  7,  on  which  latter 
day  Jack  spoke  at  Bowdoin  College,  Brunswick,  Maine,  we 
shared  the  journey,  and  a  unique  one  it  was  for  me.  Seldom 
was  I  so  tired  from  travel  that  I  missed  a  lecture,  whether 
upon  Socialism,  or  his  experiences  as  tramp,  Klondiker, 
War  Correspondent,  Sailor,  or  Writer.  I  never  wearied 
of  seeing  Jack  step  out  upon  stage  or  platform,  with  that 
modest-seeming,  almost  bashful  boyishness  which  so 
charmed  his  audiences,  and  yet  which  so  quickly,  when  he 


SECOND  MARRIAGE;  LECTURE  TRIP          89 

raised  his  splendid  head  and  launched  into  any  serious 
theme,  changed  to  the  imperiousness  of  certitude.  Once, 
well  appreciative  though  I  was  of  his  beauty  in  this  one  of 
his  myriad  phases,  I  remonstrated : 

"I  wonder  if  you  realize  how  forbidding  you  look  when 
you  walk  out  of  the  wings.  Your  expression  is  positively 
haughty! — as  if  you  considered  your  audience  mere  dust 
under  your  feet!" 

He  laughed  outright. 

"  Why,  I  don't  feel  that  way  at  all,  of  course.  Don't  for 
get — I'm  making  up  my  mind  what  I'm  going  to  say,  and 
really  not  thinking  of  my  hearers — busy  with  my  thought. 
And  then,  too, ' '  he  figured  it  out,  '  *  it  may  be  a  left-over  of 
the  system  by  which  I  first  overcame  stage-fright.  It  was 
something  like  this:  I've  got  something  to  say.  I've  got 
to  say  it.  I'm  going  to  say  it  the  best  way  I  can,  even  if 
it 's  not  oratory.  If  I  try  to  make  a  good  speech  and  fail — 
well,  I  shall  have  failed,  that's  all.  I  very  soon  had  de 
cided  not  to  take  too  seriously  any  failure  to  speak  gracious 
ly.  What  of  it !  I  said.  I  won't  be  the  only  one ;  others  have 
fallen  down  and  why  should  I  be  proud!  And  anyway, 
diffidence  arises  from  conceit,  I  don't  care  who  disagrees 
with  me  ...  So  remember,  Mate,  when  I  assume  what  you 
are  pleased  to  call  my  imperial  pose,  it  is  done  quite  un 
consciously,  being  an  outgrowth  of  my  early  search  after  a 
shield  for  backwardness.  I  am  not  consciously  thinking  of 
myself  at  all ;  I  am  busy  with  my  thought  and  the  imminent 
business  of  putting  my  thought  in  the  best  way  possible." 

At  the  next  lecture,  when  he  moved  out  upon  the  boards 
he  looked  over  at  my  box,  his  face  breaking  into  that  un 
studied  morning  smile  that  wrought  lovers  out  of  enemies, 
and  a  little  rustle  passed  through  the  house  as  if  wings 
were  ruffling  and  stretching.  But  in  a  flash  the  smile  had 
fled  behind  the  lordly  mask  of  his  concentration,  and  I  knew 
I  had  ceased  to  exist  for  him. 

But  never,  in  any  presentment  of  himself,  was  he  so 


90       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

splendid,  so  noble,  as  when,  with  starry  eyes,  he  flamed  out 
the  vision  of  his  conversion  to  the  only  religion  he  was  ever 
to  know:  "All  about  me  were  nobleness  of  purpose  and 
heroism  and  effort,  and  my  days  were  sunshine  and  star- 
shine,  all  fire  and  dew,  with  before  my  eyes,  ever  burning 
and\  blazing,  the  Holy  Grail,  Christ's  Own  Grail,  the  warm, 
human,  long-suffering  and  maltreated  but  to  be  rescued  and 
saved  at  the  last. ' ' 

Jack  swore  he  was  getting  enough  train-travel  to  last  all 
his  life,  and  loathed  it  ever  after.  But  very  merrily,  whether 
in  Pullman  or  jerky  day-coach,  we  put  in  .hours  that  might 
otherwise  have  been  irksome,  reading  aloud,  playing 
casino  and  cribbage,  writing  letters,  and  altogether  enjoy 
ing  our  companionship.  Moreover,  and  blessed  assurance 
of  its  continuance  undimmed,  we  respected  each  other's 
solitude  and  independence — Jack  at  intervals  spending 
hours  in  the  smoker,  listening  profitably  to  the  conversa 
tion  of  his  own  sex,  or  napping  to  make  up  for  broken  nights 
of  travel.  The  all-around  ' '  good  time ' '  we  invariably  found 
together  is  best  pointed  by  an  incident  several  years  later, 
when  we  were  returning  home  from  South  America  by  way 
of  the  Gulf  and  New  Orleans.  As  usual,  we  were  bound 
up  in  each  other  and  the  interest  of  our  occupations,  at 
cards,  sharing  in  books,  the  scenery,  or  in  speculation  upon 
the  passengers.  During  one  of  Jack's  absences,  I  was 
resting  with  closed  eyes,  when  a  beautiful  matron  in  the 
section  ahead,  whom  we  had  noticed  with  two  younger 
women,  came  and  sat  beside  me : 

"I  hope  you'll  not  think  me  too  rude,"  she  opened,  "but 
I  want  to  ask  a  very  personal  question.  Are  you  really 
Mrs.  Jack  London?" 

There  was  suclj  entire  absence  of  offense  in  her  eager, 
frank  address  that  I  could  only  laugh  delightedly  while 
assuring  her  this  bliss  had  been  mine  for  four  years.  But 
again  she  pressed: 

"Are  you  really  she?"  and  before  I  could  protest  in  sur- 


SECOND  MARRIAGE;  LECTURE  TRIP          91 

prise,  she  hurried  on,  l  '  My  daughters  and  I  have  been  dis 
cussing  you  two  with  the  greatest  curiosity,  and  said  we 
were  sure  there  must  be  some  mistake — the  thing  is  in 
credible;  married  people  don't  act  as  you  do.  Never  have 
we  seen  a  married  couple,  except  possibly  on  their  honey 
moon,  have  such  a  good  time  together 1" 

All  I  could  do,  in  return,  was  to  assure  her  that  we 
were  on  our  honeymoon. 

From  Brunswick,  where  Jack  averred  to  President 
Hyde  that  if  his  college  days  could  come  again  he  would 
attend  Bowdoin,  we  filled  another  lecture-blank  week  with 
my  father's  people  in  Ellsworth  and  Mt.  Desert  Island, 
Maine.  A  day  here,  a  day  there,  in  the  dear  homesteads  that 
had  once  been  my  homes  for  a  long  free  year,  we  spent  with 
this  and  that  aunt  or  cousin — solid  hearts  of  the  very 
granite  of  old  "State  o'  Maine,"  with  their  own  glow  and 
sparkle  that  renders  them  instantly  aware  of  sham  of  any 
kind.  One  and  all  they  pronounced  the  captivating  boy  I 
had  wedded,  with  his  irradiation  of  sweetness  and  sympa 
thy  and  the  open  boyish  face  and  heart  of  him,  "Just  one 
of  us!"  and  called  him  their  own  forever  and  ever.  Jack 
in  turn  dubbed  them  "salt  of  the  earth,"  and  gave  them  of 
his  best. 

Around  Bar  Harbor  ("Somesville"),  West  Eden  and 
Northeast  Harbor,  in  an  ideal  "Down  East"  winter,  we 
drove  over  the  snow-packed,  glinting  roads  that  skirt  the 
toothed  coast  of  this  isle  of  seafarers.  Oddly  enough  to 
those  who  think  of  Jack  London  in  terms  of  icy  Alaska 
with  its  white  ways  of  transportation,  Jack  had  never  be 
fore  driven  in  a  sleigh.  So  varied  had  been  his  adventures, 
that  it  was  a  prize  of  life  for  me  to  participate  with  him  in 
an  unknown  one.  Smothered  to  the  ears  in  a  borrowed 
coon-coat,  head  and  hands  snug  in  sealskin  cap  and  gloves 
he  had  bought  in  Boston,  he  took  keen  interest  in  manag 
ing  a  span  of  spirited  blacks  harnessed  to  a  smart  "  cutter, " 


92       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

their  red-flaring  nostrils  tossing  white  plumes  of  steam  in 
the  crackling,  sun-gilt  air. 

Again  in  Boston,  we  became  the  guests  of  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Frank  Merritt  Sheldon,  in  their  handsome  colonial  home 
at  Newton — with  whom  I  had  gone  to  Europe.  Jack's  ad 
vent  must, have  been  an  illuminating  if  not  disturbing  one  to 
them,  for  many  and  ofttimes  weird  characters  found  their 
way  up  the  driveway  to  the  pillared  portico  of  the  lofty 
white  house  on  a  hillock.  And  of  course  newspapermen 
came  and  went.  One  of  those  my  husband  hoped  to  meet 
again  some  time,  preferably  in  a  dark  alley  where  a  nose 
might  be  tweaked  unseen  by  the  police ;  for,  in  reply  to  this 
man's  question  as  to  how  it  seemed  to  be  the  wife  of  a 
celebrity,  he  had  made  me  deliver  the  ecstatic  cry,  "It's  just 
grand ! ' ' 

It  was  nothing  unusual  for  some  inebriated  derelict  to 
press  the  button  upon  the  stroke  of  midnight ;  and  once  an 
indubitably  insane  crank  perturbed  the  early  hours  and 
the  housemaid.  But  our  host  and  hostess  were  ideal,  spar 
ing  no  pains  to  place  their  home  and  themselves  at  their 
guests'  disposal  in  every  finest  sense  and  detail,  and  ap 
parently  enjoying  it  all  thoroughly. 

Jack  was  driven  nearly  to  the  limit  of  endurance  in 
the  week  before  the  twenty-seventh,  when,  with  a  holiday 
month  in  store,  we  sailed  for  Jamaica.  Boston  cameras  pic 
tured  him  hollow-eyed;  but  be  he  driven  or  not  driven,  I 
came  to  learn  that  he  was  wont  to  look  other  than  his 
fresh,  virile  self  whenever  cities  laid  clutch  upon  him. 
Never  did  he  thrive  in  a  great  metropolis. 

In  Tremont  Temple,  and  in  historic  Faneuil  Hall,  under 
the  noted  Gilbert  Stuart  of  the  Father  of  His  Country,  to 
packed  audiences  Jack  London  sent  forth  his  voice  for  the 
Cause.  In  the  latter  auditorium,  that  sweet  and  unvan- 
quished  fighter,  "Mother  Jones,"  marched  up  the  central 
aisle  to  the  rostrum,  and  greeted  the  young  protagonist 


SECOND  MAEBIAGE;  LECTURE  TRIP          93 

of  her  holy  mission  with  a  sounding  kiss  on  either  cheek. 
He  spoke  also  at  Socialist  Headquarters. 

The  Intercollegiate  Socialist  Society  had  been  organized 
for  a  month  or  two,  and  the  Harvard  members  got  together 
and  saw  to  it  that  the  first  President,  Jack  London,  should 
be  heard  in  Harvard  Union. 

Aside  from  Mrs.  Sheldon,  myself,  and  one  or  two  others, 
there  were  no  women  present  in  Harvard  Union  that  night. 
We  sat  with  Frank  Sheldon  and  Gelett  Burgess  in  a  tiny 
gallery  hung  upon  the  rear  wall  of  the  high  hall.  A  thrill 
ing  sight  it  was,  that  throng  of  collegians,  not  only  those 
crowded  both  seated  and  standing  on  the  floor  below,  but 
the  scores  hanging  by  their  eyebrows  to  window  case 
ments,  welcoming  Jack  with  round  upon  round  of  ringing 
shouts  and  cheers — an  ovation,  the  papers  did  not  hesitate 
to  call  it. 

He  gave  them,  unsparingly,  all  and  more  than  they  had 
bargained  for,  straight  from  the  shoulder,  jolting  "  Revolu 
tion"  into  them.  Once,  when  a  statement  of  starvation 
facts,  concerning  the  Chicago  slums,  was  so  awful  as  to 
strike  a  number  of  the  chesty  young  bloods  as  a  bit  melo 
dramatic,  a  laugh  started.  Jack's  face  set  like  a  vise,  and 
he  hung  over  the  edge  of  the  platform,  a  challenge  to  their 
better  part  flaming  from  black-blue  eyes  and  ready,  merci 
less  tongue.  Be  it  said  that  the  response  was  instantaneous 
and  whole-hearted,  the  house  rising  as  one  man  and  echoing 
to  the  applause  until  I,  for  one  onlooker,  choked  and  filled 
with  emotion  at  the  human  fellowship  of  it.  At  the  close 
of  the  lecture,  Jack  and  Mr.  Sheldon  were  carried  off  to  the 
fraternity  houses  and  royally  entertained  the  rest  of  the 
night. 

One  afternoon,  at  the  request  of  the  Boston  Anverican, 
Jack  attended  and  wrote  up  a  performance  of  the  Holy 
Jumpers,  whose  breezy  antics,  I  dare  opine,  he  did  not  re 
gard  as  any  more  outlandish  than  certain  metaphysical 


94       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

gymnastics  he  wotted  of — and  thought  them  far  more  whole 
somely  cheerful. 

Still  another  afternoon,  we  put  in  three  breathless 
hours  in  Thomas  W.  Lawson's  private  office  at  Young's 
Hotel,  entirely  absorbed  (in  a  room  peopled  with  replicas 
of  elephants  of  every  size,  breed,  and  composition),  in  that 
brilliant  and  energetic  gentleman's  proposed  "cure"  for 
the  ills  and  shams  of  modern  society.  Be  it  known,  that 
the  assertive  and  vehement  conversationalist  Jack  Lon 
don  was  also  a  prince  of  listeners.  His  was  the  perfection 
of  attention  to  any  speaker  who  was  worth  while.  True,  he 
seldom  squandered  precious  time  upon  one  who  was  not, 
but  would  proceed  to  harry  unrelentingly  until  he  had  routed 
the  other;  after  which  he  would  try  to  make  up  in  various 
ways  for  his  aggressiveness. 

One  of  our  most  interesting  acquaintances  in  Boston  was 
Dr.  George  W.  Galvin,  staunch  Socialist  and  clever  surgeon ; 
and  one  day  he  arranged  to  take  us  through  the  Massachus 
etts  General  Hospital.  Once  inside,  would  we  care  to  see 
an  operation!  Dr.  Eichardson  was  in  the  theater  and  about 
to  remove  an  appendix.  While  my  lips  formed  Yes,  swiftly 
I  roved  my  adventurously  promising  career  beside  the 
bright  comet  I  had  taken  unto  myself  for  better  or  worse, 
a  future  wherein  I  might  be  required  to  reckon  with  singu 
lar  emergencies  in  war  or  travel  by  sea  and  land.  I  must 
never  fail  my  man  who  despised  a  coward  beneath  all  things 
under  the  sun.  Here  was  chance  for  a  certain  kind  of  prepa 
ration.  Nerves  I  confessed  in  abundance :  had  I  nerve  also  ? 

And  so,  curious  concomitant  of  a  honeymoon,  I  wit 
nessed  the  masterly  elimination  of  an  appendix  from  a 
patient  who  bore  startling  facial  resemblance  to  my  own 
husband;  thence  to  a  second  operating  theater  where  we 
were  present  at  the  sanguinary  trepanning,  for  tumor  of 
the  brain,  of  a  woman's  skull — "a  Sea-Wolf  operation, 
eh!"  Dr.  Galvin  chuckled. 

Through  all  of  which,  placing  myself  in  a  rigidly  scien- 


SECOND  MARRIAGE;  LECTURE  TRIP          95 

tific  frame  of  mind,  I  emerged  with  flying  colors,  to  Jack's 
congratulation.  Two  months  later,  never  having  viewed 
a  corpse  in  my  life,  except  when  too  young  to  remember,  I 
was  introduced  to  such  for  the  first  time — when  they 
ushered  me  into  the  dissecting  chamber  of  the  University 
of  Chicago,  where  some  dozen  or  so  cadavers  stiffly  bade 
greeting  to  my  unaccustomed  gaze.  These  two  trials,  trials 
in  a  number  of  senses,  reenforced  by  a  day  among  the 
bleeding  horrors  of  the  stockyards  in  the  same  City,  grad 
uated  Jack  London's  wife  forever  out  of  apprehension  as 
to  similar  tests  that  might  overtake  her. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 

JAMAICA,   CUBA,   FLORIDA,    NEW   YORK   CITY 
30th  Year 

THE  Admiral  Farragut,  in  ballast,  rode  high  and  rolled 
prodigiously.  Our  cabin,  well  aft,  suffered  the  full 
wallowing  effect  of  the  vessel's  "sitting  down  in  the  sea- 
hollows,  "  and  I,  for  the  first  time  in  adult  life,  fell  violently 
sick.  Great  mortification  was  mine,  before  a  sailor  hus 
band,  who  eyed  me  with  surprise  and  some  misgiving,  look 
ing  to  our  aqueous  future.  But  on  the  third  day  out,  he  sat 
him  down  in  the  stateroom  and  regarded  me, ,  with  eyes 
in  which  there  was  the  pleasure  of  a  discovery: 

"I've  been  learning  something  about  myself,  and  I  may 
say  about  you, ' '  he  launched  forth.  ' '  I  never  thought  I  had 
it  in  me  to  feel  any  accession  of  tenderness  toward  a  sea 
sick  woman !  But  somehow,  I  seem  to  love  you  more  than 
ever  before — I  don't  know  why,  unless  because  each  new  en 
vironment,  whatever  it  may  be,  seems  to  make  you  still 
dearer  to  me." 

Inside  the  month,  crossing  in  a  dirty  little  Spanish 
steamer  from  Jamaica  to  Cuba,  to  our  mutual  astonishment, 
Jack  himself  went  to  pieces.  A  slight  shock  precipitated  the 
attack.  Only  one  steamer  chair  being  visible,  we  had 
appropriated  it ;  and  in  a  heavy  surge  the  flimsy  thing  col 
lapsed.  A  moment's  pause,  and  Jack  picked  himself  up 
and  walked  aft  without  a  word.  He  did  not  return.  In 
quisitive,  I  went  to  investigate,  and  halted  petrified  to  be 
hold  my  hardened  tar,  hanging,  green-pallid  and  audible, 
over  the  stern-rail,  thoroughly  seasick  for  the  initial  time 

96 


JAMAICA,  CUBA,  FLORIDA,  NEW  YOEK  CITY    97 

in  his  nautical  history.  And  in  the  years  to  come,  he  ac 
cepted  a  recurrence  as  a  matter  of  course  in  rough  weather. 
He  likened  the  phenomenon  of  mal  de  mer  to  our  native 
poison-oak — catch  it  just  once,  and  immunity  is  a  lost  bless 
ing.  In  passing,  I  must  state  that  Jack  continued  immune 
to  that  irritating  .scourge  of  California,  poison-oak. 

The  Admiral  Farragut  docked  at  Port  Antonio,  Jamaica, 
on  New  Year's  morning,  1906.  In  the  harbor  was  anchored 
the  Howard  Gould  yacht,  and  at'  the  Hotel  Titchfield  we 
made  the  acquaintance  of  Ella  Wheeler  Wilcox  (whom  Jack 
had  championed  so  valiantly  of  old  to  the  Lily  Maid),  and 
her  husband,  Robert. 

In  the  afternoon  I  had  my  first  revel  in  milk-warm, 
tropical  waters,  coral-girt,  and  we  made  sport  for  our  party 
by  diving  for  coins  and  practising  life-saving  as  we  had 
done  in  Wake  Robin  pool.  The  next  day  was  spent  in  the 
saddle.  Our  mounts  were  spindly,  blood-bay  race-horses, 
and  Jack's  never  for  a  moment  let  out  of  our  minds  the  fact 
that  he  had  been  first  under  the  wire  in  the  previous  day's 
races.  But  we  saw  the  more,  by  our  involuntary  speed,  of 
the  British-neat  island  paradise,  exploring  the  town  itself, 
a  pineapple  plantation,  and  the  romantic  hill-stronghold  of 
Moortown,  still  inhabited  by  the  maroons — descendants  of 
Spanish  slaves. 

The  sharpest  impressions  carried  away  of  that  journey, 
in  our  first  foreign  clime  together,  were  of  the  buxom, 
broad-smiling,  .broad-hipped  negro  wenches,  basket-on- 
head,  met  on  the  dustless  mountain  roads  that  were  in 
reality  fern-hedged  boulevards;  the  spiritual  featured 
Hindoo  women,  weighed  with  their  family  wealth  of  silver 
adornment,  specimens  of  which  we  purchased;  the  foolish 
luncheon  out  of  queer,  tempting  tins,  accompanied  by  Eng 
lish  "biscuits,"  consumed  while  we  dangled  blissful  heels 
from  the  counter  of  a  little  wayside  store  with  a  superb 
sea-view  leagues  below,  the  ebony  proprietor  and  his  indo 
lent  friends  loafing  genially  about.  But  clearest  of  all  re- 


98       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

mained  the  raffish  spectacle,  at  Moortown,  of  a  home-made 
merry-go-round.  It  was  weather-grayed,  witchy,  rickety, 
and  ridden  by  grinning  black  natives  to  a  rhythmic  chant 
from  their  own  throats  that  affected  us  strangely — as  if  by 
some  potent  incantation  dragging  into  the  sunlight  of  civili 
zation  the  most  abysmal  of  racial  reticences.  It  bestirred 
that  mental  unease  which  sometimes  overtakes  one  who 
listens  over-long  to  the  primitive,  disturbing  call  of  modern 
' '  jazz ' '  orchestration. 

Leaving  Port  Antonio  on  the  third  day,  by  train  for  Buff 
Bay,  we  were  there  met  by  a  dusky  guide  with  horses,  we 
having  chosen  this  route  across  the  green,  fern-forested 
mountains  to  Kingston.  It  was  all  * i  unspeakably  beautiful, ' ' 
I  read  in  a  pocket  diary.  We  lunched  and  siesta  'd  at 
Cedarhurst,  an  English  plantation,  where  Barbara  Francis 
brewed  incomparable  coffee  from  beans  which,  by  a  true 
lady  of  the  land,  are  roasted  to  a  crisp  for  each  meal. 
Three  large  cupfuls,  black  and  strong,  I,  Jack's  "insom- 
niast,"  dared  to  tuck  away;  and  three  long  hours  after 
wards,  I,  the  insomniast,  slumbered  peacefully.  "Why,  our 
coffee  cures  insomnia,"  crooned  Barbara  Francis,  as  she 
snuggled  me  into  a  downy  four-poster  from  ' '  Home. "  i  i  It 's 
the  way  we  roast  it  and  percolate  it,  I  fancy — besides  being 
the  best  coffee  in  the  world  to  begin  with ! ' ' 

Her  husband  led  us  about  the  plantation  before  we  swung 
again  into  our  saddles  for  the  next  lap,  and  Jack,  irresistibly 
enthusiastic,  made  it  very  plain  to  me  how  coffee  must  be 
served  on  the  Eanch  when  we  should  go  to  housekeeping. 

Out  we  fared  into  a  sunset  of  tropically  crude  blue  and 
copper  and  rose,  slipping  through  swift  twilight  into  starlit 
blue  dark.  Trustingly  behind  the  mellow-throated  guide 
our  sure-footed  little  beasts  dropped  steeply  down  a  frag 
rant  trail,  lighted  fitfully  by  darting  fireflies,  into  Chester 
Vale.  Here,  at  Sedgwick's,  the  very  picture  of  an  ancient, 
rambling  English  country  home,  we  spent  the  night.  '  You 


JAMAICA,  CUBA,  FLORIDA,  NEW  YORK  CITY    99 

couldn't  pack  a  Broadwood  half  a  mile,"  Jack  quoted,  com 
ing  beside  me  where  I  was  examining  my  first  Broadwood 
pianoforte.  "Try  it,  do."  But  the  stately  relic  answered 
back  in  tones  probably  such  as  Kipling's  Broadwood  might 
have  rendered  up  had  it  been  "packed"  to  the  humid  river 
region  he  rimed  with  "mile." 

In  the  dewy,  singing  morning,  it  was  boots  and  saddles 
over  the  Blue  Ridge  Range — through  Hardware  Gap,  Silver 
Hill  Gap,  Greenwich,  Newcastle  Barracks,  Gordontown, 
sometimes  in  lanes  and  driveways  made  especially  beautiful 
by  tree-ferns  and  crimson  hibiscus  blossoming  tree-high, 
and  into  Kingston  by  the  sea.  Here  at  the  Park  Lodge 
Hotel,  our  first  caller  was  Ben  Tillett,  M.  P.  and  labor 
leader,  he  and  Jack  of  course  being  known  to  each  other. 

Ah,  it  was  so  softly  exciting,  so  wondrous,  seeing  the 
world  together,  all  the  glamorousness  enhanced  by  that 
lovely  old  hostelry  with  its  long  French  windows  that  let  in 
the  scented  tropic  air.  My  husband,  who  had  pleasured 
exceedingly  in  my  wintry  Boston  shopping  for  "flimsies" 
to  be  donned  in  the  warmer  latitudes,  now  had  the  satisfac 
tion  of  seeing  the  light  apparel  in  use — then,  as  always  in 
the  future,  appreciative  and  critical  of  every  detail  of  my 
wardrobe.  Nothing  would  do  but  he  must  take  me 
curio-seeking  in  quaint  shops,  more  particularly  for  a  be- 
jeweled,  flexible  silver  girdle  of  Hindoo  origin,  and  snaky 
bracelets  to  match. 

Only  one  incident  arose  to  mar  the  holiday  perfection. 
It  was  on  the  very  night  of  arrival  that  I  came  abruptly 
upon  the  stone  wall  of  one  of  Jack's  self-styled  "disgusts." 
In  review,  I  cannot  place  the  cause — perhaps  it  was  some 
hitch  on  Manyoungi's  part  regarding  the  luggage,  or  Jack's 
dinner-clothes ;  at  least,  I  saw  no  large  concern  back  of  his 
silent  anger,  unless  .  .  .  unless,  indeed,  some  trifle  had 
connected  his  memory  with  some  unhappy  occurrence  in 
his  past.  But  it  was  black,  that  mood,  from  whatever  deeps 
it  rose ;  and  ruthlessly  he  sent  me,  alone,  to  the  viny  bower 


100  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

that  was  the  hotel's  dining-hall,  in  a  court  of  flowers  that 
screened  the  musicians,  to  keep  an  engagement  we  both  had 
made  with  a  fellow  traveler  from  Boston. 

Puzzled  and  hurt  I  was,  but  held  my  peace,  and  made 
smooth  wifely  excuses  for  a  severe  headache  that  was  not 
altogether  an  untruth.  In  the  morning  Jack  woke  his  sun 
niest,  save  for  a  wordless  penitence  that  looked  out  of  eyes 
which  went  so  darkly-blue  under  a  generous  emotion. 

It  was  ages  before  the  matter  ever  came  up  between  us. 
But  although  we  spoke  of  it,  I  never  made  sure  of  the  under 
lying  impulsion  that  had  sent  him  agley.  It  was  not  the 
only  instance  of  its  kind,  but  I  came  timely  to  sense  the 
causes,  and  avert  them  wherever  in  my  power.  Yet  I  hasten 
to  undo  any  impression  I  may  have  given  that  in  our  lives 
such  ' i  spells ' '  were  the  order  of  the  day.  On  the  contrary, 
months  and  years  might  elapse  during  which  no  trace  of 
the  old  blues  intervened;  and,  in  this  connection,  I  am  re 
minded  of  the  gradual  disappearance,  after  our  marriage,  of 
certain  terrible  headaches  to  which  he  had  been  subject. 
This  was,  I  think,  largely  due  to  his  seeking  more  adequate 
sleep. 

The  Spanish  steamer  aforementioned,  the  Oteri,  landed 
us  in  Santiago  de  Cuba  on  the  6th,  where,  from  the  Hotel 
del  Alba,  we  drove  about  the  city  and  to  San  Juan  Hill,  and 
strolled  lace-hunting  in  cool  little  shops.  And  Jack  bought 
some  lovely  fans  to  gratify  my  slight  Spanish  streak, 
which  I  called  up  to  play  its  part  in  its  own  congenial 
habitat.  A  dinner  which  we  enjoyed  in  the  Cafe  Venus, 
guests  of  a  charming  gentleman  who  was  living  out  what  of 
life  was  still  vouchsafed  by  one  remaining  lung,  was  always 
a  colorful  memory  to  Jack,  who  incorporated  it  somewhere 
in  his  fiction.  I,  in  a  soft  rosy  gown,  swaying  languidly 
my  spangled,  pearl-handled  fan  to  the  lilt  of  a  plaza  band 
in  the  lazy  warm  airs  under  the  palms,  wondered  if  anything 


JAMAICA,  CUBA,  FLORIDA,  NEW  YORK  CITY  101 

to  come  in  our  wanderings  could  approach  the  romance 
that  was  here. 

After  the  final  act  at  a  theater,  when  the  pretty  victoria 
had  left  us  at  the  hotel,  we  ascended  to  our  vaulted  chamber 
and  drifted  out  upon  a  balcony  railed  in  fretted  gilt  iron, 
and  lounged  a  restful  hour,  shamelessly  gazing  into  luxuri 
ous  Spanish  interiors  and  balconies  across  the  narrow 
street,  where  senoras  and  senoritas  entertained  in  their 
courtly  manner.  I  am  certain  that  Jack  reveled  in  that 
night ;  but  more  certain  am  I  that  some  seven-eighths  of  his* 
content  was  vested  in  that  of  his  bride,  to  whom  every  mo 
ment  was  as  a  pearl  of  price  and  as  such  abides. 

Jack,  his  manhood  revolting  at  the  brazen  falsity  of  a 
cab-driver  who  delivered  us  at  the  railroad  station,  became 
the  nucleus  of  a  gesticulating  and  to  all  appearances  not 
harmless  mob.  As  the  moment  of  departure  neared,  he 
called  to  me  to  go  aboard  with  Manyoungi.  Only  the  fact 
that  Jack  had  tickets  and  money  in  his  possession  restrained 
him  from  going  to  jail  at  the  last  instant  rather  than  abase 
his  Anglo-Saxon  pride  before  the  impudent  half-breeds. 
As  it  was,  mad  as  a  hatter,  he  paid  for  an  extra  passenger 
who  existed  solely  in  the  crafty  imagination  of  the  cab-man, 
and  boarded  the  train  after  it  was  in  motion.  There 
was  some  consolation,  however,  when  in  Havana  the  same 
ruse  was  tried,  and  the  American  Consul,  himself  a  Span 
iard,  to  whom  Jack  appealed,  in  short  order  sent  to  the 
right-about  a  much-cowed  coachman  who  had  sworn  by 
the  Virgin  to  two  extra  fares ! 

The  rich  country  across  which  we  sped  that  golden  day, 
and  an  Egyptian  sunset  athwart  little  hills  for  all  the  world 
so  like  pyramids  that  one 's  eyes  went  questing  through  the 
rose  and  yellow  and  lilac  for  a  Sphinx,  all  wrought  upon 
Jack's  creative  faculties.  He  withdrew  into  himself  at  in 
tervals,  to  make  notes  for  a  novel  which  I  now  realize  never 
was  written— "The  Flight  of  the  Duchess. " 


102  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

In  the  Spanish  city  of  Havana,  with  its  dream-tinted 
palaces,  instead  of  putting  up  at  a  hotel,  we  found  cool  gray 
rooms  in  a  flower-girt  patio  at  Consolado  and  Neptune 
Streets.  Of  course,  we  did  and  saw  everything  there  was 
to  do  and  see  in  so  short  a  sojourn:  a  launch  trip  around 
the  twisted  wreck  of  the  Maine;  visits  to  Moro  Castle  and 
Cabanas  Fort,  and  to  the  swimming  baths  of  hewn  coral; 
and  we  drowned  our  souls  in  the  fairy  coloring  of  the  isle 
and  the  waters  of  the  Gulf.  Notable  amid  our  entertain 
ment  was  a  sportive  evening  watching  the  Basque  game  of 
Jai  Alai,  followed  by  a  gorgeous  banquet  in  the  famous 
Hotel  Miramar,  originally  built  by  a  rich  American  for  the 
pleasure  of  his  guests. 

A  book  in  itself  would  be  required  to  relate  an  after 
noon  we  spent  in  the  lazar-house — an  experience  that  for  all 
time  interested  us  in  the  tragedy  of  the  leper. 

"We  hated  to  leave  Havana, "  says  my  red  booklet, 
"but  all  the  world's  before  us!" 

The  steamer  Halifax  set  us  down  at  Key  West,  where 
we  transferred  to  the  ShinnecocJc  for  Miami.  Jack,  who 
from  his  omniverous  reading  knew  considerable  about  al 
most  everything  under  the  sky,  was  curious  to  hook  a  few 
of  the  six  hundred-odd  varieties  of  fish  reputed  to  swim  in 
Miami  waters.  "Just  think,  Mate,"  he  said  to  me,  "one- 
fifth  of  the  entire  fauna  of  the  American  Continent,  north 
of  Panama,  inhabit  this  part  of  the  coast."  Boating, 
angling  for  edible  fish  and  hooking  outlandish  finny 
shapes,  driving  in  the  Everglades,  calling  at  the  alligator 
and  crocodile  farm,  and  shopping  for  curios  and  snake- 
skins,  filled  the  Miami  visit.  Next  we  stopped  at  Daytona 
Beach,  where  from  the  Hotel  Clarendon  we  branched  out  on 
automobile  trips  over  the  beautiful  stretches  of  sand,  fished 
off  the  long  pier,  and  took  a  day's  launch-exploration  up 
the  tropical  Tomoka  Kiver. 

Jack  had  been  drooping,  dull  and  listless,  for  a  day  or 


JAMAICA,  CUBA,  FLORIDA,  NEW  YORK  CITY  103 

two.  On  the  return  cruise  he  became  rapidly  worse,  so  that 
I  was  up  all  night  with  him,  and  in  the  morning  sent  numer 
ous  telegrams  delaying  New  York  appointments. 

No  doctor  would  he  let  me  summon,  "  Because  I  simply 
can't  be  laid  up  long,  with  New  York  and  the  rest  of  the 
lecture  schedule  to  be  lived  up  to,"  he  demurred.  "Be 
sides,  it's  only  grippe — I  know  the  symptoms;  and  I  also 
know  myself  and  my  recuperative  abilities  better  than  any 
doctor.'' 

I  sat  by  his  bedside  reading  aloud  and  running  to  the 
window  whenever  a  racing  car  whizzed  past,  while  the  pa 
tient  grumbled  and  groaned  with  splitting  head:  "And 
I  came  to  this  damned  place  mainly  to  see  those  cars  at 
practice ;  and  now  look  at  me ! " 

The  next  I  knew,  glancing  up  from  a  totally  unemotional 
page  of  Shaw's  "The  Irrational  Knot,"  was  that  Jack  was 
weeping  copiously,  the  tears  coursing  down  his  hot  cheeks. 
Much  perturbed,  I  yet  failed  to  wring  from  him  any  ex 
planation.  But  I  was  to  learn  through  painful  experience 
that  very  night,  for  I  was  struck  down  by  the  identical 
malady  and  myself  fell  emotional  to  a  degree  upon  the 
mildest  provocation. 

Manyoungi,  fortunately,  remained  untouched  by  the 
sickness,  and  nobly  nursed  the  pair  of  us,  sending  further 
telegrams  that  moved  ever  ahead  our  New  York  arrival. 
Crawling  in  to  Jack  from  my  room,  he  received  me  with 
feeble  arms  and  trembling  voice : 

"Mate  Woman,  I  know  I  shall  love  you  always!"  and 
we  both  cried  sumptuously  over  the  sentiment.  And  how  we 
laughed  in  memory  of  our  mawkishness,  once  the  attack  of 
dengue,  or  "boo-hoo"  fever,  which  it  proved  to  be,  was  a 
thing  of  the  past. 

As  soon  as  we  were  slightly  better,  we  took  a  drawing- 
room  for  New  York,  stopping  over  at  Jacksonville  for  an 
afternoon  in  which  to  totter  around  the  Ostrich  Farm. 


104  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

The  foregoing  is  by  way  of  preparing  the  reader  for  re 
ceiving  into  New  York  City  a  white,  hollow-eyed,  very 
miserable  Jack  London,  burdened  with  an  almost  insupport 
able  number  of  engagements  to  fulfil  in  half  the  days  he 
had  originally  alloted  them.  The  first  was  a  socialist  meet 
ing  in  Grand  Central  Palace,  his  lecture  advertised  for 
eight  p.  m.,  and  our  belated  train  gave  him  scant  leeway. 
In  no  wise  aided  by  the  fact  that  I  had  to  go  to  bed,  too 
blind  with  pain  in  head  and  muscles  to  lend  cheer  by  word 
or  smile,  Jack,  ill,  travel-worn,  dinnerless,  got  into  his  black 
suit  and  somehow  carried  off  the  occasion.  His  audience, 
a  mixed  one,  totaled  nearly  four  thousand. 

More  than  once  Jack  had  forewarned  me,  in  similar 
strain  to  his  remarks  in  the  Johns  Letters,  of  the  baleful 
influence  exercised  upon  him  by  this  mighty  man-trap,  New 
York  City.  Even  so,  that  early,  I  was  inclined  to  discount 
the  mental  factor,  laying  his  condition  mainly  at  the  door 
of  fever  and  social  over-strain.  But  I  was  forced  to  change 
my  mind.  His  own  diagnosis  was  that  his  experience  with 
the  City,  first  from  the  viewpoint  of  tramp  and  beggar,  and 
afterward  from  that  of  successful  author  at  whom  "pub 
lishers  were  trying  to  throw  money  in  the  form  of  advances 
on  unperformed  work, ' '  seemed  to  have  unbalanced  his  pre- 
ceptions  and  sent  him  reasoning  in  a  circle  like  that  of  cer 
tain  young  German  philosophers. 

"It's  all  a  madness, "  he  would  gird.  "  'Why  should 
anybody  do  any  thing  V  is  my  continual  thought  when  I  am 
in  New  York.  I  am  being  shaved :  I  look  up  into  the  face 
of  the  man  who  is  using  the  razor  on  me,  and  wonder  why 
he  doesn't  cut  my  throat  with  it.  I  stare  with  amazement 
at  the  elevator-boy  in  the  hotel,  that  he  doesn't  throw 
everything  to  the  winds  and  let  loose  in  one  hell  of  a  smash- 
up,  just  for  the  whimsey  of  it!" 

At  the  opera,  he  brooded  and  made  notes.  If  the  music 
reached  him  at  all,  it  was  not  as  music,  but  as  an  urge 
toward  other  thoughts  and  speculations.  "Music?  It  is  a 


JAMAICA,  CUBA,  FLORIDA,  NEW  YORK  CITY  105 

drug,"  said  he.  "I  have  asked  several  men  and  women  for 
a  definition  of  music.  George  Sterling  comes  the  nearest  to 
satisfying — a  drug.  It  sets  me  dreaming  like  a  hasheesh- 
eater." 

We  sat  at  the  Winter  Garden.  He  filled  the  evening 
agonizing  mentally  over  the  probable  careers,  in  the  thea 
trical  shambles,  of  the  choms  girls,  beautiful  mere  children 
that  they  were,  flown  like  moths  to  the  bright  lights  that 
were  consuming  them. 

We  supped  at  the  Revolutionists'  Club,  and  afterward 
inspected  a  mile  or  so  of  the  Ghetto,  peering  into  the  un- 
ventilated  gloom  of  "inside  rooms, "  at  the  sullen  pasty 
faces  of  the  inmates.  Jack  moved  about,  either  silently,  as 
if  playing  his  part  in  a  nightmare,  or  arguing  strenuously 
as  if  against  time. 

Up-town  or  down-town,  it  seemed  as  if  all  normal  spon 
taneity  had  fled  from  him,  and  I  could  but  exist  in  hope 
that  the  man,  who  was  as  though  a  thousand-thousand 
leagues  apart  from  me,  might  one  day  come  .suddenly 
to  his  own  again,  to  the  healthy,  vital  boy  that  was  himself. 

After  one  reception  that  was  given  in  our  honor,  when 
a  newspaperwoman  had  seized  the  occasion  to  poke  a  little 
fun  at  the  bride's  obvious  devotion,  Jack  sneered  with 
mirthless  laugh:  "What  did  you  expect? — Any  natural 
human  appreciation  of  anything  natural  and  human,  in 
New  York  f" 

It  was  about  this  time  that  The  Cosmopolitan  Magazine 
had  issued  a  challenge  to  a  few  of  America's  thinking 
writers,  to  contribute  articles  on  the  theme  "What  Life 
Means  to  Me."  Jack  had  not  yet  found  leisure  in  which 
even  to  ponder  what  he  should  say ;  but  a  conversation  with 
Edwin  Markham  stirred  him  to  action: 

"How  are  you  going  about  it  f  "  asked  the  white-maned 
poet,  his  splendid  dark  eyes  bent  upon  the  younger  man. 

"Damned  'f  I  know!"  smiled  Jack.    "How  are  you?79 

Followed    a    discussion,    Mr.    Markham    appreciating 


106  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

Jack's  uncompromising  socialist  approach  to  the  subject, 
but  doubtful  of  its  expediency  as  regarded  the  magazine 
editors. 

But  when  the  Jack  London  production  appeared  in  Thg 
Cosmopolitan,  it  was  without  editorial  blue  elision,  "  Which 
is  why  I  like  to  work  for  Hearst, "  Jack  repeated  an  oft- 
voiced  opinion.  "Writers  for  Hearst,  special  writers  like 
myself,  are  paid  well  for  expanding  their  own  untrammeled 
views. ' '  ( Once  he  expatiated :  ' i  Why,  when  I  returned  from 
Manchuria  and  presented  my  expense  account,  the  Examiner 
editor  said,  'For  God's  sake,  London,  do  itemize  this  a  little 
before  I  send  it  in ! '  I  did  this,  and  the  unquestioned  total 
was  remitted  in  due  course. "  So  meticulously,  indeed,  had 
The  Examiner  observed  the  details  of  Jack's  war  correspon 
dence,  that  he  had  been  greatly  entertained,  upon  his  re 
turn,  to  notice  that  wherever  he  had  queried  his  own  spell 
ing,  the  "  (Spl?) "  with  which  he  had  preceded  the  word  was 
left  untampered!) 

In  Jack  London's  "What  Life  Means  to  Me"  (final 
article  in  book  entitled  "Bevolution"),  one  reads  what  is 
perhaps  his  most  impassioned  committal  of  himself  as  a 
rebel  toward  the  shames  and  uncleannesses  of  the  capitalist 
system.  Here  he  dedicates  himself  to  what  he  sees  as  his 
Holy  Grail,  to  "the  one  clean,  noble  and  alive"  thing  worth 
working  for — George  Sterling's  definition  of  Socialism. 
In  the  essay  Jack  hints  at  some  of  his  experiences,  east  and 
west,  more  than  one  of  them  in  the  immediate  past  of  his 
lecturing  tour,  and  what  he  learned  therein  concerning  the 
women  and  men  of  the  ' '  tottering  edifice ' '  of  the  upper  crust 
of  Society.  His  challenge  is  flung  to  that  thin  and  cracking 
upper  crust  as  he  saw  it:  "with  all  its  rotten  life  and  un- 
buried  dead,  its  monstrous  selfishness  and  sodden  mate 
rialism.  ' ' 

The  only  break  in  the  New  York  days  was  when  Jack 
went  to  New  Haven  to  give  the  "Be volution"  lecture  at 


JAMAICA,  CUBA,  FLORIDA,  NEW  YORK  CITY  107 

Yale  University,  under  title  of  "The  Coming  Crisis. "  To 
my  everlasting  regret  I  was  too  weak  to  accompany  him. 
He  was  invited  to  speak  by  the  author  of  that  exquisite, 
human  Irish  idyl,  "My  Lady  of  the  Chimney  Corner/' 
Reverend  Alexander  Irvine,  who  represented  the  state  com 
mittee  and  the  New  Haven  Local.  Jack  cut  out  several 
less  important  affairs,  and  gave  to  Connecticut  January  26. 
No  theater  nor  hall  being  available,  the  Socialists,  includ 
ing  members  of  the  Intercollegiate  Society,  had  held  an  in 
formal  Smoker  in  an  ivied  tower  in  Vanderbilt  Hall  of  the 
august  college,  and  hatched  the  critical  scheme  of  getting 
the  Faculty  interested  in  bidding  Jack  London,  famous 
young  litterateur,  to  grace  Woolsey  Hall,  Yale's  million- 
dollar  white  marble  memorial. 

Dr.  Irvine  commissioned  an  astute,  socialistically-bent 
student  to  take  the  matter  up,  first,  with  an  officer  of  Yale 
Union,  a  debating  society.  The  seed  fell  on  fertile  ground. 
"The  officer  of  the  Yale  Union, "  says  Dr.  Irvine,  in  a  de 
lightful  illustrated  brochure  which  he  afterward  compiled, 
"was  a  youth  of  exceeding  great  callowness. 

"  'They  say  he's  socialistically  inclined,  Doctor/  he 
said. 

"  ' Rather,'  I  replied. 

"  'Well,'  he  said,  'I  suppose  we'll  have  to  take  our 
chances.'  " 

Dr.  Irvine  guaranteed  the  hall  rent,  advertising,  and 
so  forth,  provided  an  admission  fee  of  ten  cents  might  be 
charged,  which  was  agreed  upon. 

It  really  was  a  shame,  what  these  graceless  free-thinkers 
put  over  upon  President  Hadley.  One  of  the  leading  Pro 
fessors,  although  apprehensive  of  Jack's  "radical  ten 
dencies,"  was  yet  reasonable:  "Yale  is  a  University," 
enounced  he,  "and  not  a  monastery.  Besides,  Jack  Lon 
don  is  one  of  the  most  distinguished  men  in  the  world. ' ' 

Dr.  Irvine  tells :  "A  few  hours  after  it  was  decided  that 
we  could  have  Woolsey  Hall  the  advertising  began.  The 


108  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

factories  and  shops  were  bombarded  with  dodgers.  Every 
tree  on  the  campus  bore  the  mysterious  inscription:  'Jack 
London  at  Woolsey  Hall.'  Comrade  Dellfant  painted  a 
poster  which  gripped  men  by  the  eyes.  In  it  Comrade  Lon 
don  appears  in  a  red  sweater  and  in  the  background  the 
lurid  glare  of  a  great  conflagration.  .  .  .  On  the  morning  of 
the  26th  Yale — official  and  unofficial — awoke  as  if  she  had 
been  dreaming.  She  rubbed  her  eyes  and  again  scanned 
the  trees  and  the  billboards.  Then  the  officers  of  the  Yale 
Union  were  run  down.  They  had  previously  run  each  other 
down.  Explanations  were  in  order  all  around.  Several  of 
the  Yale  Union  boys — in  pugilistic  parlance — lost  their  little 
goats.  They  were  scared  good  and  stiff.  Several  Yale  Dons 
got  exceedingly  chesty  over  the  affair.  But  the  New  Yale 
took  a  hand,  and  Professors  Kent  and  Phelps  counseled  a 
square  deal  and  fair  play.  One  student,  in  sympathy  with 
the  meeting,  said:  "Yale  Union  and  many  of  the  Faculty 
are  sweating  under  the  collar  for  fear  London  might  say 
something  socialistic. ' 

But  it  was  definitely  settled  that  the  lecture  could 
not  be  called  off  and  the  only  thing  was  to  make  the  best 
of  it.  "When  we  arrived  on  the  scene, "  Dr.  Irvine  refers 
to  Jack  and  himself,  "the  boys  still  believed  that  any  ref 
erence  to  Socialism  would  be  merely  incidental.7'  Jack's 
friend,  by  the  way,  in  his  spirited  account  attires  the  speak 
er,  with  marked  respect,  in  a  white  flannel  shirt !  Friends 
and  enemies  alike  insisted  upon  his  wearing  flannel ! 

The  crowd  that  packed  Woolsey  Hall  represented  every 
social  phase  of  New  Haven  and  its  suburbs — a  hundred  pro 
fessors  and  ten  times  as  many  students ;  many  hundreds  of 
workingmen;  many  hundreds  of  citizens;  many  hundreds 
of  Socialists.  "But,"  the  humorous  Irish  divine  remarks, 
"the  Socialists  were  so  overwhelmed  by  the  bourgeois 
atmosphere  that  there  was  not  the  slightest  attempt  to  ap 
plaud  during  the  entire  length  of  the  lecture."  And  the 
Socialist  "bouncers"  who  had  been  surreptitiously  sta- 


JAMAICA,  CUBA,  FLORIDA,  NEW  YOEK  CITY  109' 

tioned  throughout  the  big  audience,  in  reserve  for  possible 
ructions,  held  their  idle  hands. 

"For  over  two  hours  the  audience  gave  the  lecturer  a 
respectful  hearing.  A  woman — a  lady — went  out  swearing. 
A  few  students  tried  hard  to  sneer,  but  succeeded  rather 
indifferently.  Jack  London  gripped  them  by  the  intellect 
and  held  them  to  the  close.  Following  the  lecture,  Comrade 
London  was  invited  to  a  student's  room — one  of  the  largest 
— and  there  he  answered  questions  until  midnight.  As  the 
clock  struck  twelve  a  member  of  the  Yale  Union  came  to  me 
and  asked  me  seriously  if  I  thought  there  was  any  hope  of 
keeping  London  for  a  week!  'We  can  fit  him  up  here,'  he 
said,  'in  fine  shape.' 

"There  was  a  second  conference  at  Mory's  and  some 
tired  intellects  were  handled  rather  roughly  by  the  guests 
of  the  evening — but  the  students  clung  to  him  and  escorted 
him  in  the  we  sma '  hours  up  Chapel  Street  toward  the  So 
cialist  parsonage  where  another  reception  was  awaiting 
him. 

"A  Professor  of  Yale,"  Dr.  Irvine  concludes,  "told 
me  a  few  days  after  the  lecture  that  it  was  the  greatest  in 
tellectual  stimulus  Yale  had  had  in  many  years,  and  he 
sincerely  hoped  that  London  would  return  and  expound 
the  Socialist  program  in  the  same  hall." 

Jack  had  been  advised  beforehand  as  to  certain  faulty 
acoustics  in  the  beautiful  auditorium.  That  he  lent  no 
deaf  ear  may  be  judged  from  one  of  the  newspapers,  which 
also  gives  a  hint  upon  his  platform  personality  at  that 
time : 

".  .  .  he  walked  to  the  edge  of  the  stage  and  began  to 
speak  in  a  clear  voice,  which  reached  easily  to  the  farthest 
corner  of  the  hall.  He  used  scarcely  any  gestures,  and  rare 
ly  raised  his  voice  even  to  emphasize  a  point.  His  emphasis 
he  got  by  reiteration. ' ' 

As  for  his  countenance,  in  a  photograph  taken  with 


110  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

Dr.  Irvine,  there  can  be  noticed  the  strange,  haggard  look 
he  wore  during  that  period. 

His  immediate  treatment  by  the  New  Haven  dailies 
was  one  of  leniency,  not  lacking  the  dignity  of  at  least 
trying  to  quote  him  verbatim.  He  was  not  flattered  by  the 
portrait  they  published,  since  it  was  of  some  one  else, 
youthfully  apostolic  in  appearance,  arrayed  quite  differ 
ently  from  Jack's  reputed  "white  flannel  shirt. " 

While  the  local  press  was  minded  to  be  indulgent  and 
the  University  as  little  unduly  excited  as  had  been  Har 
vard  in  its  turn,  the  trustees  of  Derby  Neck  Library,  in  the 
same  State,  rose  in  a  denunciatory  body  and  repudiated,  to 
all  intents  and  purposes  forever,  the  entire  works  of  Jack 
London.  Further  misquoting  his  "to  hell  with  the  con 
stitution  "  pronouncement,  those  opinion  creators  exhorted 
the  public,  in  no  uncertain  terms,  likewise  to  spurn  all 
periodicals  containing  Jack's  stories. 

It  had  happened  that  Mr.  Melville  E.  Stone,  general 
manager  of  the  Associated  Press,  spoke  in  New  Haven  upon 
the  same  evening  with  Jack  London.  But  whenever  asked, 
by  sympathizers,  regarding  the  policy  of  the  Derby  Neckers, 
if  he  thought  Mr.  Stone's  presence  had  anything  to  do  with 
the  deluge  of  adverse  newspaper  notoriety  which  followed. 
Jack  invariably  insisted:  "Not  in  the  least.  I  am  per 
sonally  convinced  that  Mr.  Stone  had  nothing  to  do  with  it. ' ' 

But  it  was  ludicrous  how  the  tune  of  the  press  changed 
from  "the  brilliant  young  author"  to  criticisms  such  as, 
"pathologically  he  is  a  neurasthenic,"  or  it  disposed  of  him 
lightly  as  "that  socialist  sensation-monger  who  calls  him 
self  Jack  London."  It  is  noteworthy,  however,  that  his 
mother's  home  town,  Massillon,  Ohio,  supported  an  editor 
with  a  sense  of  proportion,  for  he  naively  propounded,  in 
The  Morning  Gleaner,  "Must  a  novelist  necessarily  admire 
the  Constitution?" 

The  truth  is,  that  the  wide  controversy  as  to  black 
listing  Jack's  books  caused  an  alarming  slump  in  sales  for 


JAMAICA,  CUBA,  FLORIDA,  NEW  YOEK  CITY  111 

some  time  to  come.  He,  who  always  maintained  his  unfit- 
ness  for  physical  martyrdom :  ' '  I  'd  tell  anything  under  tor 
ture  1" — thus  sacrificed  unflinchingly  for  his  beliefs,  mar 
tyred  his  brain  faculties  in  the  cause  of  Truth. 

About  the  nearest  the  capitalist  editors  leaned  toward 
championing  him,  or  at  least  reacting  to  the  high-handed 
imposition  of  arbitrary  standards  upon  readers  of  Derby 
Neck  or  other  communities,  was  when  they  voiced  some 
thing  of  President  "Wheeler's  earlier  sentiments  as  to  the 
unlidding  of  highly  explosive  propaganda. 

Came  the  ninth  and  last  day  that  parted  us  from  our 
western  trek.  Whisked  from  a  luncheon  of  celebrities  to 
the  Twentieth  Century  Limited,  we  were  settled  in  our  sec 
tion  and  the  car  gliding  homeward,  when  Jack,  suddenly, 
with  a  sigh,  nodded  his  curly  head  and  as  suddenly  fell 
asleep.  All  strain  was  erased  from  his  features — it  was  the 
face  of  a  dreaming  child  that  slipped  into  the  hollow  of  my 
shoulder,  ordained  from  aforetime.  When  he  awoke,  and 
consciousness  had  focused  in  his  eyes,  they  looked  up  into 
mine  with  a  matter-of-course  recognition  of  content.  Upon 
his  tongue  was  speech  of  home — and  how  were  the  dear 
Brown  Wolf,  and  that  rabbity  little  bay  mare,  Fleet,  which 
the  young  Aliens  had  sold  us  along  with  other  farm  per 
quisites  when  they  vacated  the  old  house  on  the  Hill  place? 

It  was  preciously  similar  to  the  way  he  had  emerged 
from  his  thrall  on  that  epochal  spring  day  in  Nunn's 
Canyon.  And  I  was  to  learn,  whensoever  great  Gotham 
claimed  its  price  and  prize  of  his  unresting  heart  and  brain, 
that  I  must  deal  with  another  personality  than  the  wonted 
Jack  London. 


CHAPTER  XXIX 

CHICAGO;  RETURN  TO  OAKLAND,  GLEN  ELLEN;  EARTHQUAKE 

1906 

CHICAGO,  noises  and  drafts  and  sifting  soot  and  all, 
seemed  to  reach  to  us  east-worn  travelers  like  home 
and  peace,  despite  the  rushing  stop-over  that  had  been 
charted. 

On  Sunday,  January  28,  Jack  lectured  to  the  Socialists 
at  the  West  Side  Auditorium,  introduced  by  A.  M.  Simons, 
editor  of  the  International  Socialist  Review.  Standing-room 
only,  and  that  all  taken,  was  the  situation  long  before  Jack 
had  risen  to  speak. 

On  Monday  he  repeated  "The  Social  Revolution "  at  the 
University  of  Chicago,  and  the  Socialists  were  more  than 
ever  elate  that  the  "magnificent  lecture  of  Comrade  Lon 
don  "  should  be  staged  in  the  "intellectual  stronghold  of 
Standard  Oil."  Kent  Hall,  which  had  been  opened  to  the 
Sociological  Club,  was  incapable  of  holding  the  mob  bent 
upon  seeing  and  hearing  its  famous  mouth-piece,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  students  themselves  and  a  horde  of  citizens. 

It  was  a  fine  sight  to  me,  the  hundreds  overflowing  on  to 
the  stage  itself,  sidewalks  jammed  outside,  and  more  coming 
every  second.  Things  were  growing  tense.  The  dissatisfied 
murmur  of  the  many  denied  admission  floated  into  the 
packed  playhouse.  Then  an  usher  climbed  before  the  foot 
lights  and  announced  that  the  meeting  would  adjourn  to 
Mandel  Hall — Mandel  Hall!  the  auditorium  consecrated  to 
the  most  dress-parade  functions  of  the  great  University, 
and  even  known  to  have  been  refused  to  the  minor  colleges 
for  their  commencement  exercises. 

112 


BETURN  TO  OAKLAND;  EARTHQUAKE   113 

The  galleries  had  been  barred;  but  when  the  throng 
had  swept  aside  the  helpless  ushers  and  occupied  every 
foot  of  space,  seat  and  aisle,  fear  of  infringing  fire  regula 
tions  caused  the  galleries  to  be  thrown  open. 

The  dailies  of  Chicago,  still  smarting  under  the  sup 
pressed  wedding  news,  as  well  as  from  Jack's  late  attacks, 
from  the  Atlantic  Coast,  upon  her  sweat-shop  atrocities, 
naturally  let  him  have  the  broadside  of  their  ridicule  and 
enmity.  But  somehow,  so  fond  were  we  of  the  city,  it  failed 
to  offend. 

Before  we  said  good-by,  Mr.  Simons  and  his  attractive 
and  learned  wife  had  us  to  the  University  dissecting  rooms 
aforementioned,  as  well  as  to  the  Armour  and  Swift  stock 
yards  and  slaughtering  plants.  And  while  we  were  on  the 
trail  of  unpleasant  but  instructive  sights  of  the  world  in 
which  we  live,  we  spent  a  night  going  through  one  section 
of  Chicago's  "red-light"  district. 

Our  last  sight-seeing,  ere  we  left  on  the  31st  for  St.  Paul, 
was  of  Hull  House,  where  we  made  the  acquaintance  of  Miss 
Jane  Addams.  It  Was  a  treat  to  listen  to  a  discussion  be 
tween  Miss  Addams  and  Jack  London — each  approaching 
the  same  heartfelt  problems  from  widely  divergent  angles. 

"Well,"  Jack  observed,  stretching  himself  in  the  Pull 
man,  '  '  the  Little  Woman  has  added  a  number  of  strange  ex 
periences  to  her  life.  And  you  don't  know,"  he  broke  out, 
"you  can't  guess,  what  it  means  to  me,  to  have  you  by  my 
side  everywhere,  in  everything  I  do  and  see.  I  am  not 
lonely  any  more.  Wherever  I  go, — at  least,  wherever  it  is 
possible  for  me  to  take  you,  I  want  you  with  me — I  want 
you  to  know  the  world  as  I  know  it,  the  good  and  the  bad 
of  it.  It  means  the  world  to  me  that  you  don't  flinch 
from  any  of  it,  so  far  as  I  can  see. — In  fact, ' '  his  tone  went 
grave  and  his  brow  severe,  before  breaking  into  laughing 
speech,  "the  way  that  you,  shameless  women  that  you  are, 
tenderly  raised  a  vegetarian,  put  away  that  hearty  lunch 


114  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

after  seeing  animals  slaughtered  all  forenoon,  worries  me 
about  your  immortal  soul!" 

"But  you  will  kindly  remember/'  I  came  back,  "that  I 
confined  my  depredations  solely  to  bivalves  and  prawns !" 

In  the  little  diary  of  that  day's  ride  I  find:  "Jack  says 
we  two  are  living  in  a  Land  of  Love,  wherever  we  are." 
There  is  less  tender  notation  to  the  effect  that  I  was  sorely 
beaten  at  both  casino  and  cribbage;  also  mention  of  our 
finishing  Turgenev's  "On  the  Eve"  and  beginning  Gis- 
sing's  "The  Unclassed,"  reading  aloud,  turn  about. 

At  St.  Paul,  Jack  lectured  for  the  Lyceum  Bureau.  We 
visited  the  handsome  State  Capitol,  fashioned  throughout, 
marbles  and  all,  from  native  American  materials.  We  sat 
through  an  exciting  wrestling  match  in  the  Armory.  And 
nothing  would  do  but  Jack  must  take  part  in  an  impromptu 
"curling"  tournament.  It  was  with  keen  enjoyment  he 
drove  the  heavy  but  elusive  disks  over  the  constantly  swept 
ice-rink,  and  the  very  picture  of  a  Scotch  laddie  was  he,  in 
borrowed  tarn  o'shanter  and  woolen  plaid.  We  heard  later, 
much  to  his  amusement,  that  the  driver  of  the  automobile 
that  returned  us  over  the  hard  snow  to  the  hotel,  had  been 
arrested  for  speeding! 

Grand  Forks,  North  Dakota,  was  the  next  jump,  where 
we  were  entertained  by  President  Merrifield  of  the  State 
University,  and  in  this  city  on  February  3  were  given  Jack's 
two  final  lectures.  The  "first  and  last  tour,"  so  far  as  the 
speaking  end  of  it  was  concerned,  had  terminated — untime 
ly,  for  Jack  was  tired  and  ill  from  the  long  siege,  and  had 
crossed  off  a  number  from  the  itinerary.  On  the  train  he 
wrote  Cloudesley  Johns: 

"I  called  off  the  Mills  [B.  Fay  Mills,  The  Evangelist]  debate 
because  he  requested  me  to,  and  because  the  only  alternative  was  a 
refined  and  sublimated  statement  that  had  nothing  in  it  to  debate 
about.  Have  been  miserably  sick,  and  have  cancelled  a  whole 
string  of  lectures,  including  all  California  lectures.  I  sent  you  a 


EETUEN  TO  OAKLAND;  EARTHQUAKE   115 

wire  canceling  Owen  debate.  ...  I  won't  get  down  to  Los  Angeles 
this  spring. ' ' 

The  remainder  of  the  journey  was  without  special  event, 
except  that  our  train  was  delayed  above  beautiful  Dunsmuir, 
in  California,  by  a  freight  wreck  ahead  in  a  canyon.  The 
passengers  made  a  picnic  of  it,  wandering  about  the  adjacent 
country ;  and  we  twain,  being  immersed  in  Selma  Lagerlof 's 
"Gosta  Berling,"  reclined  upon  a  grassy  slope  and  read 
to  each  other.  I  think  it  will  be  seen,  by  now,  why  Jack  and 
I  were  never  bored,  no  matter  how  long  nor  uninteresting, 
in  the  estimate  of  some  mortals,  our  traverse.  Life  was 
not  long  enough  in  which  to  read  the  books  we  desired, 
to  do  the  work  laid  out,  to  talk  of  the  myriad  things  sug 
gested  by  other  myriad  things ;  nor  to  love. 

At  three  o'clock,  the  last  but  one  morning  before  we 
reached  Oakland,  Jack  woke  me  in  my  berth.  Disturbing 
my  rest  being  a  tacit  taboo,  I  was  startled ;  but  his  instant 
whisper,  shaken  with  eagerness,  reassured:  " Throw  on 
your  kimono  and  come  out  on  the  platform  with  me.  I 
want  to  show  you  something — youVe  got  to  see  it!" 

It  was  indeed  "  something " — great  Shasta,  upthrust 
14,000  feet,  snow-crowned,  into  the  moonlit,  night-blue  dome 
of  the  sky;  and  the  Lassen  Buttes,  stark  and  flat  in  the 
beams  of  a  setting  moon,  like  peaks  cut  from  heavy  dull- 
gold  cardboard.  Eight  years  thereafter,  in  Mexico,  when 
General  Funston  remarked  that  he  had  read  in  "El  Im- 
parcial  V  telegraphic  column  that  Mt.  Lassen  was  in  erup 
tion,  my  mind  flew  back  to  that  hour  before  dawn  when  Jack 
and  I,  so  airily  clad,  arm-in-arm  on  the  lurching  vestibule 
platform,  gazed  out  upon  the  fairy  scene,  and  spoke  in 
hushed  tones. 

The  Oakland  reporters  flocked  to  Jack  upon  his  return, 
and  to  their  queries  he  repeated  that  if  his  marriage  had 
proved  invalid  in  Illinois,  he  would  have  remarried  in  every 


116  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

state  in  the  Union.  Keferring  to  some  misreport  about 
himself,  I  find  this  from  the  Oakland  Herald: 

"Yes,  that  was  another  case  of  being  the  victim  of  re 
porters'  readjustment  of  facts.  Oh,  I  know  I  have  been  a 
newspaperman  myself — thereby  perhaps  I  know  so  well 
how  impossible  it  is  for  reporters  to  avoid  perverting  facts. 
Oh,  heavens,  no!  I  am  not  trying  to  demonstrate  that  re 
porters  are  natural-born  liars,  and  yet.  .  .  . 

"Why,  do  you  know,  while  I  was  in  Chicago  the  other 
day,  I  had  two  reporters  struggle  with  my  immortal  soul 
for  hours  trying  to  get  me  to  say  that  I  am  a  believer  in 
free  love — which  I  am  not  at  all.  They  struggled  nobly, 
but  I  stood  firm  to  the  argument  that  the  family  group  is 
the  very  hub  of  things. 

"But  then  I  rather  enjoy  this  misrepresentation.  It  is 
amusing;  and  besides  you  know,  it's  fine  advertising!  And 
I  don't  take  myself  seriously,  so  can  take  all  that's  said 
about  me  as  a  joke,  for  I  always  try  to  laugh  at  the  in 
evitable." 

Jack  had  concluded  to  cease  paying  rent  in  Oakland ;  and 
shortly  after  our  arrival,  as  man  and  wife,  at  the  little  flat 
in  Telegraph  Avenue,  we  set  about  finding  a  suitable  house 
for  his  mother  and  Johnnie,  as  well  as  Mammy  Jennie.  One 
was  purchased  on  Twenty-Seventh  Street,  Jack's  ultimate 
decision  influenced  by  the  handsome  woods  of  its  interior 
finishing,  for  he  was  fond  of  good  lumber.  One  room  in  the 
upper  story  we  reserved  for  town  headquarters. 

By  mid-month  we  were  on  the  way  to  our  true  home, 
and  were  met  at  the  Glen  Ellen  station  by  "Werner  Wiget, 
who  had  long  since  changed  his  abode  from  the  Fish  Eanch 
to  the  farm-house  up  the  mountain,  where  now  he  was  in 
charge,  under  my  Aunt's  supervision  in  Jack's  absence. 

"Jack's  House,"  at  Wake  Eobin,  as  it  has  ever  since 
been  known,  served  as  formerly  for  writing  quarters  and 
Manyoungi  's  sleeping  place.  Other  living  rooms,  added  to 


BETUBN  TO  OAKLAND;  EARTHQUAKE   117 

Wake  Eobin  Lodge  proper,  and  spoken  of  as  the  Annex, 
were  in  readiness  for  our  use,  and  a  neat  and  comely  neigh 
bor,  Mrs.  Grace  Parrent,  who  wanted  to  swell  her  own 
family  exchecquer  for  some  special  purpose,  had  engaged 
to  cook  and  ply  her  deft  French  needle  in  preparing  me  for 
the  round-world  voyage. 

It  was  a  sort  of  sublimated  camping.  Our  winter  table 
was  set  in  a  corner  of  the  spotless  kitchen  that  was  odorous 
of  new  pine;  and  later  on,  when  spring's  caprices  had 
quieted,  the  table  was  removed  out  under  the  laurels  at 
the  brookside,  where  our  crocked  butter  and  cream  cooled  in 
the  ripples.  Mrs.  Parrent 's  excellent  repasts  were  en 
joyed  to  the  music  of  tuneful  Korean  treebells  that  Man- 
youngi  knew  well  how  to  place  to  advantage  among  the  bays 
and  oaks.  Jack  and  I  had  discovered  many  tastes  in  com 
mon,  even  to  a  fondness  for  olive  oil  as  a  culinary  lubricator, 
in  preference  to  the  animal  fats.  He  had  acquired  his 
among  the  Greek  fishermen,  I  in  my  Aunt's  vegetarian 
household. 

Jack  was  not  yet  looking  quite  himself,  the  sunken 
shadows  still  lurking  about  his  eyes ;  and  a  marked  decrease 
in  weight  was  noticeable.  I  was  aware  of  an  almost  painful 
relief  in  that  he  was  once  more  out  of  the  turmoil  of  urban 
life  and  immersed  in  laying  plans  for  the  summer's  work 
and  play,  the  building  of  his  deep-sea,  boat,  and  the  modest 
improvement  of  the  "Blessed  Ranch,"  as  he  lovingly  re 
ferred  to  it.  Consequently,  it  was  with  positive  alarm  that 
I  regarded  the  managing  editor  of  a  large  eastern  monthly, 
who  arrived  from  New  York  two  days  after  our  return  to 
Wake  Robin,  his  mission  to  induce  Jack  immediately  to  re- 
cross  the  continent,  for  the  purpose  of  making  a  first-hand 
study  of  the  southern  cotton-mills  in  relation  to  child-labor. 

Caring — perhaps  sinfully,  who  shall  say? — more  for  the 
imminent  welfare  of  this  man  of  mine  than  for  all  the  serfs 
of  all  ages,  I  sat  at  the  interview  silently  exerting  every 


118  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

fiber  of  me  against  his  going.  I  was  certain,  from  observa 
tion  of  his  internal  restlessness,  that  if  he  went  back  into  the 
cities  so  soon,  there  might  be  dire  consequences.  Rea 
soning  back  to  his  state  antedating  the  summer  of  1905,  I 
knew  he  had  had  enough,  for  the  time  being. 

The  editor  was  plainly  anxious  not  to  find  his  journey 
in  vain.  Eloquently  he  pleaded.  Jack  pondered  with 
troubled  eyes,  and  would  not  give  answer  until  he  and  I 
had  talked  it  over.  He  wanted  to  do  the  thing;  his  con 
science  pressed  him  to  do  it.  And  though  he  recognized 
as  well  as  I  the  need  in  which  he  stood  of  freedom  from  what 
he  had  only  just  escaped,  he  would  not  have  shirked  even 
if  his  actual  life  had  depended  upon  it.  But  balanced  against 
this  new  work  was  the  work  he  had  already  pledged,  to 
gether  with  other  responsibilities ;  and  there  came  to  aid  his 
ultimatum  a  slight  misstep  of  the  editor,  who  let  drop  that 
if  Jack  did  not  undertake  the  commission,  another  man, 
only  a  little  less  noted — Socialist — was  in  view.  "Let 
the  other  fellow  have  a  chance/'  often  a  slogan  of  Jack 
London's,  was  the  outweighing  grain  in  the  scales. 

Jack  knew,  and  why,  though  I  said  little  and  tried  not 
to  look  too  much,  that  I  was  dead-set  against  his  going.  I 
never  learned  precisely  what  he  thought  of  my  attitude 
— whether  he  blamed  me  for  being  instrumental,  by  mere 
woman-mothering  possessiveness  and  solicitude,  in  with 
holding  him  from  a  duty,  or  was  glad  I  agreed  that  he  stay 
west  for  a  while.  If  there  resided  in  his  mind  any  un 
flattering  criticism,  it  died  with  him.  It  may  be  that  some 
thing  restrained  me  from  asking;  and  joy  in  his  augmented 
well-being — always  my  religious  care — took  the  place  of 
morbid  self-examination.  Before  I  desert  the  subject, 
let  it  be  said  that  the  second-choice  of  author  and  investi 
gator  did  a  splendid  piece  of  work — "Better  than  I  could 
have  done  it,  by  far!"  Jack  enunciated  his  satisfaction; 
hence  the  ultimate  good  was  served.  Furthermore,  one 
of  Jack's  finest  bits  of  writing,  after  our  return,  was  a  story 


RETURN  TO  OAKLAND;  EARTHQUAKE   119 

of  the  making  of  a  hobo  by  the  process  of  cotton-mill  child- 
slavery.  This  was  i  i  The  Apostate, ' '  which,  following  serial 
publication,  came  to  have  wide  circulation  in  pamphlet 
form  through  a  Socialist  publishing  house  in  Chicago. 
(The  book  " Revolution "  contains  this  tale.) 

How  more  than  busy  we  were!  Aside  from  regular 
writing,  which  was  soon  resumed,  Jack,  with  eye  to  home- 
building,  ordered  fruit-trees  of  all  descriptions  suitable 
to  the  latitude,  and  seventy-odd  varieties  of  table-grapes 
— orchard  and  vineyard  to  be  planted  upon  an  amphi 
theater  behind  a  half-circle  we  had  chosen  for  the  house- 
site.  Johannes  Reimers  tendered  the  benefit  of  his  pro 
fessional  advice  about  the  trees  and  vines,  and  ordered  for 
us  a  hedge  of  Japanese  hawthorne  to  flourish  between  or 
chard  and  house-space,  which  in  time  grew  into  a  glory  of 
orange  and  red  berries  alternating  with  a  season  of  white 
blossoming.  The  plot  was  on  the  lip  of  a  deep  wooded  ravine 
which  was  the  Ranch 's  southern  boundary,  ancient  redwood 
and  spruce,  Jightning-riven  and  eagle-nested,  accenting  the 
less  majestic  growth.  We  never  wearied  of  riding  Belle  and 
Ban  to  the  spot,  in  our  minds'  eyes  the  vision  of  a  rugged 
stone  house  that  was  to  rise  like  an  indigenous  growth  from 
the  grassy  semi-circle. 

While  occupied  upon  two  Alaskan  tales,  "A  Day's 
Lodging"  and  "The  Wit  of  Porportuk"  (bound  in  "Love 
of  Life"  and  "Lost  Face"),  Jack  arranged  the  manuscripts 
for  two  short-story  volumes,  "Moon  Face"  and  "Love  of 
Life,"  published  in  1906  and  1907  respectively.  Next, 
Upton  Sinclair's  "The  Jungle"  was  reviewed.  Jack,  who 
apositely  dubbed  it  "The  ' Uncle  Tom's  Cabin'  of  Wage- 
Slavery,"  sadly  observed  thereafter  that  the  most  conspic 
uous  result  of  this  expose  of  labor  conditions  in  the  stock 
yards  was  only  to  make  the  public  more  careful  what  it  put 
into  its  stomach. 

While  he  was  working  on  another  story,  "When  God 


120  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

Laughs, "  a  letter  was  received  from  Mr.  E.  H.  Sothern, 
asking  him  to  write  a  socialistic  play  for  himself  and  Miss 
Julia  Marlowe ;  but  nothing  ever  came  of  this. 

Before  starting  upon  a  new  novel, i  i  Before  Adam, ' '  Jack 
had,  in  addition  to  the  above-noted  short  work,  completed 
an  article,  "The  Somnambulists "  (in  "Revolution"),  also 
the  stories  "Created  He  Them"  and  "Just  Meat"  (both 
in  "When  God  Laughs"  collection),  and  "Finis"  (in  "The 
Turtles  of  Tasman.")  Then,  by  way  of  relaxation  and 
practice  on  drama  form,  he  did  a  curtain-raiser  from 
his  story  "The  Wicked  Woman" — this  flick  of  drama 
going  into  the  volume  "The  Human  Drift,"  brought  out 
posthumously. 

During  March,  he  visited  Oakland  to  deliver  a  Social 
ist  lecture  at  Dietz  Opera  House.  Following  this  event, 
Jack  London  was  talked  of  for  Socialist  Governor  at  the 
next  elections.  While  in  Oakland,  we  selected  a  two-seated 
rig  and  a  runabout.  Jack  had  set  his  heart  upon  a  buck- 
board,  such  as  one  in  which  his  neighbor,  Judge  Carroll 
Cook,  used  to  meet  friends  at  the  railroad  station.  But 
we  were  in  urgent  need  of  a  vehicle  for  the  same  pur 
pose,  and  snapped  up  the  neat  uncovered  wagon  with  yellow 
wheels,  looking  forward  to  a  buckboard  later  on.  Jack 
never  acquired  that  buckboard.  Instead,  when  the  Napa 
Winships  went  in  for  gasolene,  we  bought  out  their  other 
rolling  stock,  which  came  to  serve  all  purposes. 

Mrs.  Louise  Clark,  a  neighbor,  sold  us  the  horse  Selim, 
a  black  handful  of  abounding  energy.  Jack,  in  the  pro 
cess  of  subduing  Selim  and  the  silly  Fleet  to  gentle  uses, 
waxed  in  soft-spoken  patience  unbelievable  to  his  old  pals 
who  came  to  look  on.  We  took  much  interest,  also,  in 
forming  different  spans  with  our  four  light  horses,  har 
nessed  to  the  new  four  wheelers. 

And  oh,  yes — the  good  Brown  Wolf,  tiny  pointed  ears 
flattened  ingratiatingly  back  into  his  russet  ruff,  and  long 
pink  tongue  lolling  dumb  delight  and  pride,  presented  us 


EETURN  TO  OAKLAND;  EARTHQUAKE   121 

to  a  new  family  of  puppies.  One  of  these  went  to  Jack's 
children.  "I  don't  think  much  of  the  rest,"  he  ruefully 
surveyed  them  and  their  mongrel  if  excellent  mother ;  so 
we  kept  none  of  the  litter. 

Presently  the  astounding  booksmith  had  begun  his  atav 
istic  "Before  Adam,"  which  came  out  in  Everybody's 
Magazine.  Upon  its  publication  a  hue  and  cry  went 
up,  originating  in  a  men's  club,  to  the  effect  that  Jack 
London  had  plagiarized  Stanley  Waterloo's  "The  Story 
of  Ab."  Be  it  said,  however,  that  Mr.  Waterloo  did  not 
start  the  trouble.  Jack  was  frank  to  admit  that ' '  The  Story 
of  Ab"  had  been  one  of  his  sources  of  material.  "But 
Waterloo  was  not  scientific,"  he  stoutly  defended,  "and  I 
have  made  a  scientific  book  out  of  my  re-creation  on  the 
subject."  So  correct  was  his  assumption,  that  "Before 
Adam"  went  into  the  universities  of  the  United  States  as  a 
text-book  in  Anthropology.  To  George  Sterling,  in  June, 
he  wrote : 

"Have  just  expressed  you  MS  of  ' Before  Adam.'  It's 
just  a  skit,  ridiculously  true,  preposterously  real.  Jump 
on  it." 

England,  even  that  early,  in  the  character  of  Red  Eye 
saw  a  "cryptic  reference  to  the  German  Emperor." 

Jack,  who  derived  material  from  every  available  source 
and  especially  from  the  newspapers  as  representing  life, 
was  eternally  dogged  at  the  heels  by  small  men  at  home  and 
abroad  who  charged  plagiarism — these  having  little  com 
merce  with  one,  more  generous,  who  said,  "If  I  could  by 
hook  or  crook  write  anything  worth  Jack  London's  copy 
ing,  I  should  consider  it  a  privilege. ' '  As  for  Jack,  he  did 
not  try  to  boycott  those  who  benefited  by  his  creations. 
Rather  was  he  pleased  that  he  had  been  first ! 

That  year  of  1906,  sketchy  as  was  our  domestic  menage, 
many  visitors  came  to  the  Lodge  annex,  and  Auntie  let  us 
spill  over  into  the  main  house.  Among  the  names  in  my 
journal  I  come  upon  our  good  friends  the  Granville-Shueys 


122  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

— Dr.  Shuey  was  custodian  of  the  welfare  of  Jack  London's 
troublesome  teeth  to  the  end  of  the  patient's  life;  Mr. 
Bamf ord ;  I.  M.  Griffin,  the  artist,  a  number  of  whose  can 
vases,  painted  in  the  neighborhood,  Jack  purchased ;  Henry 
Meade  Bland,  of  San  Jose,  at  all  times  one  of  Jack's  most 
tireless  biographers ;  Felix  Peano,  sculptor,  in  whose  house, 
La  Capriccioso,  Jack  had  once  lived;  young  Eoy  Nash,  of 
whom  "The  People  of  the  Abyss"  had  made  a  Socialist; 
Ernest  Untermann,  author,  and  translator  of  Karl  Marx; 
the  George  Sterlings;  different  members  of  the  talented 
family  of  Partingtons;  George  Wharton  James,  who 
charmed  with  his  social  qualities  and  music,  and  later  pub 
lished  most  readable  articles  upon  his  visit;  Elwyn  Hoff 
man,  poet ;  Herman  Whitaker ;  Xavier  Martinez,  artist  and 
prince  of  bohemians — "Sometimes  I  think,"  Jack  once  re 
marked,  "that  George  Sterling  and  'Marty'  are  the  realest 
bohemians  I  have  ever  known ! " ;  Maud  Younger,  settlement 
worker  and  philanthropist ;  and  a  long  list  beside. 

Our  amusements  consisted  in  exploring,  alone  or  with 
our  guests,  the  infinite  variety  of  the  one  hundred  and  twen 
ty-nine  acres  of  Jack's  "Beauty  Eanch";  driving  or  riding 
to  points  in  the  valley — say  Cooper's  Grove,  a  stately  group 
of  redwoods;  or  to  Hooker's  Falls  across  in  the  eastern 
range ;  or  to  Santa  Eosa,  as  when  we  drove  Professor  Edgar 
Larkin,  of  Mt.  Lowe  Observatory,  to  call  upon  Luther  Bur- 
bank;  or  to  the  valley  resorts  to  swim,  for  a  change  from 
Sonoma  Creek,  in  the  warm  mineral  tanks. 

During  the  Moyer-Haywood  trouble  in  Idaho,  Jack  was 
urger  by  The  Eocamwer  to  go  there  and  report  proceedings 
in  his  own  way ;  but  he  was  too  involved  at  home  to  spare  the 
time.  Nevertheless,  he  managed  to  sandwich  in  a  rousing 
article,  which  was  printed  by  the  Socialist  Voice,  of  Oakland. 

All  of  which  reads  like  the  crowded  year  it  was ;  yet  it 
is  but  a  sample  of  eleven  surpassingly  full  years  we 
were  to  live  out  together.  In  addition  to  what  I  have  set 


EETUEN  TO  OAKLAND;  EARTHQUAKE   123 

down,  Jack  read  numberless  books  of  all  sizes  and  titles,  and 
we  still  found  opportunity  to  share,  aloud,  H.  G.  Wells,  de 
Maupassant,  Gertrude  Atherton,  Sudermann,  Phillpotts, 
Saleeby,  Herbert  Spencer,  and  countless  others,  including 
plays — among  them  Bernard  Shaw's,  Clyde  Fitch's,  Ib 
sen's  ;  and,  above  all,  endless  poetry.  It  is  a  curious  jumble, 
I  know;  but  Jack  read  rapaciously — both  of  the  meatiest 
and  the  trashiest.  He  must  know  * '  what  the  other  fellow  is 
doing. ' ' 

One  day,  he  received  a  letter  from  a  bank  in  Billings, 
Montana,  informing  him  that  two  checks  bearing  his  signa 
ture  had  been  returned  from  Chicago  marked  "No  Funds. " 
It  was  an  instance  of  the  '  *  doubles ' '  who  were  fast  coming 
into  being.  The  nearest  Jack  had  ever  been  to  Billings 
was  when,  a  few  months  previous,  we  had  passed  through 
on  our  westward  way.  Jack  promptly  forwarded  to  the 
bank  his  photograph  and  signature,  and  also  an  outside 
cover  of  the  current  Everybody's  Magazine,  on  which 
under  a  sort  of  '  *  f  ootprints-on-the-sands-of-time  "  illustra 
tion  for  "Before  Adam"  his  autograph  was  reproduced. 
The  Bank  was  finally  convinced ;  but  from  all  accounts  the 
imposter  had  closely  resembled  Jack  London,  and  the  hand 
writing  was  not  dissimilar. 

This  was,  I  think,  the  only  time  a  "double"  passed 
worthless  checks ;  but  several  others  worked  the  country  in 
capacities  more  or  less  injurious  to  the  original.  One  of 
them  stirred  up  revolution  in  Mexico,  long  before  1914, 
at  which  time  Jack  London  paid  his  first  and  last  visit  to 
that  restless  republic,  as  war  correspondent  with  General 
Funston.  Another  winnowed  Oklahoma  and  adjoining  ter 
ritory,  and  the  celebrated  "101  Ranch,"  for  all  they  were 
worth  in  board  and  lodging  and  information.  Still  others 
led  girls  astray,  and  many  the  piteous  letters,  addressed  to 
places  where  Jack  had  never  set  foot,  or  when  the  pair  of  us 
were  on  the  other  side  of  the  world,  begging  restitution  for 
anything  from  stolen  virtue  to  diamonds.  Jack  tried  to  get 


124  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

in  touch  with  these  floating  impersonators,  promising 
safe  departure  if  they  would  only  come  to  the  Ranch  and 
entertain  him  with  their  methods.  But  even  when  his  letters 
never  returned,  there  were  no  replies.  While  we  were  honey 
mooning  in  Cuba,  according  to  one  side  of  a  correspondence 
that  came  into  Jack's  possession,  a  spurious  J.  L.  was  carry 
ing  on  an  affair  with  a  mother  of  several  children  in  Sacra 
mento,  California. 

On  April  18,  1906,  there  came,  in  a  sense,  the  l  i  shock  of 
our  lives. "  One  need  hardly  mention  that  it  was  the  Great 
Earthquake,  which,  most  notable  of  consequences,  destroyed 
the  "modern  imperial  city"  of  San  Francisco  as  no  other 
modern  imperial  city  has  been  destroyed.  If  it  had  not  been 
for  this  stunning  disaster  to  the  larger  place,  the  ruin 
of  our  county  seat,  Santa  Rosa,  in  which  many  lives 
were  crushed  out,  would  have  commanded  the  attention 
and  sympathy  of  the  world.  As  it  was,  refugees  from  the 
Bay  metropolis  began  presently  to  straggle  up-country, 
only  to  find  the  pretty  town  prone  in  a  scarcely  laid  dust  of 
brick  and  mortar  and  ashes. 

Jack's  nocturnal  habits  of  reading,  writing,  smoking, 
and  coughing,  or  sudden  shifts  of  posture  (he  could  not 
move  his  smallest  finger  without  springing  alive  from  head 
to  foot),  not  being  exactly  a  remedy  for  my  insomnia,  we 
ordinarily  occupied  beds  as  far  apart  as  possible.  A  few 
minutes  before  five,  on  the  morning  of  the  18th,  upstairs  at 
Wake  Robin,  my  eyes  flew  open  inexplicably,  and  I  wondered 
what  had  stirred  me  so  early.  I  curled  down  for  a  morning 
nap,  when  suddenly  the  earth  began  to  heave,  with  a  sicken 
ing  onrush  of  motion  for  an  eternity  of  seconds.  An  abrupt 
pause,  and  then  it  seemed  as  if  some  great  force  laid  hold 
of  the  globe  and  shook  it  like  a  Gargantuan  rat.  It  was  the 
longest  half -minute  I  ever  lived  through. 

Now,  I  am  free  to  confess,  I  do  not  like  earthquakes. 
Never,  child  and  woman,  had  I  liked  earthquakes.  But  my 


RETURN  TO  OAKLAND;  EARTHQUAKE   125 

mind  had  been  made  up  long  since  that  while  I  wasted  time 
being  afraid  of  them,  less  terrified  or  at  any  rate  more  ob 
servant  persons  were  able  to  take  in  phenomena  which  I 
had  missed.  And,  so  help  me,  when  the  April  18  quake  got 
under  way,  and  though  very  lonely  in  the  conviction  that 
my  end  was  approaching  in  leaps  and  bounds,  I  lay  quite 
still,  watching  the  tree-tops  thrash  crazily,  as  if  all  the  winds 
of  all  quarters  were  at  loggerheads.  The  sharp  undula 
tion  stopping,  Jack  and  I  met  our  guests,  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Reimers,  in  the  living-room,  and  we  all  had  the  same  tale  to 
relate — of  watching,  from  our  pillows,  the  possessed  antics 
of  the  trees ;  only,  all  but  myself  had  had  a  view  of  the  trunks 
rather  than  the  tops. 

When  Jack  and  I  ran  over  to  the  barn  still  rented  at 
the  Fish  Ranch,  we  found  our  saddle  animals  had  broken 
their  halters  and  were  still  quivering  and  skittish.  Willie, 
the  chore-boy,  said  the  huge  madrono  tree  near  by  had  lain 
down  on  the  ground  and  got  up  again — which  was  less  lurid 
than  many  impressions  to  which  we  listened  that  weird  day. 

In  half  an  hour  after  the  shock,  we  were  in  our  saddles, 
riding  to  the  Ranch,  from  which  height  could  be  disting 
uished  a  mighty  column  of  smoke  in  the  direction  of  San 
Francisco,  and  another  northward  where  lies  Santa  Rosa. 
In  the  immediate  foreground  at  our  feet  a  prodigious  dust 
obscured  the  buildings  of  the  State  Home  for  the  Feeble 
minded. 

"Why,  Mate  Woman, "  Jack  cried,  his  eyes  big  with 
surmise,  "I  shouldn't  wonder  if  San  Francisco  had  sunk. 
That  was  some  earthquake.  We  don't  know  but  the  At 
lantic  may  be  washing  up  at  the  feet  of  the  Rocky  Moun 
tains  I" 

Our  beautiful  barn — the  shake  had  disrupted  its  nearly 
finished  two-foot-thick  stone  walls,  and  to  our  horror  re 
vealed  that  the  rascally  Italian  contractor  from  Sonoma, 
despite  reasonable  overseeing,  had  succeeded  in  rearing 


126  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

mere  shells  of  rock,  filling  in  between  with  debris  of  the  flim 
siest.  Jack's  face  was  a  study. 

"  Jerry-built, "  he  murmured,  hurt  in  his  voice,  "and  I 
told  him  the  solid,  honest  thing  I  wanted — and  did  not  ques 
tion  his  price.  What  have  I  done  to  him,  or  anybody,  that 
he  should  do  this  thing  ?" 

He  turned  his  back  upon  the  swindle,  for  there  were 
other  things  to  see;  and  I  could  almost  vouch  that  his 
wrecked  property  did  not  enter  his  head  for  the  next  sev 
eral  days — any  more  than  he  would  bother  about  a  worri 
some  letter  or  problem  until  the  moment  came  to  dispose 
of  it. 

"And  anyway,"  he  dismissed  the  subject  as  we  turned 
down-mountain,  "it's  lucky  the  heavy  tile  roof  wasn't  al 
ready  placed,  and  some  poor  devil  sleeping  under  it ! " 

One  day,  weeks  afterward,  the  Italian  had  the  ill-con 
sidered  "nerve"  to  call  at  "Jack's  House."  I  remember 
that  we  were  showing  the  work-room  to  the  Winships.  At 
the  knock,  Jack  turned  and  recognized  the  contractor.  Fac 
ing  back  to  me,  he  said  in  a  low,  vibrating  tone :  '  '  Mate,  will 
you  attend  to  him? — send  him  away,  as  quickly  as  possible!" 
Never  fear  that  I  did  not  do  that  same.  Once  outside,  I 
said  to  the  man:  "You  must  get  out  of  here  qwckl"  And 
when  he  started  to  whine  a  remonstrance,  I  repeated,  with 
glance  over-shoulder:  "Quick!  Get  out!  And  don't  ever 
come  back ! ' ' 

Back  to  breakfast,  after  reconnoitering  the  neighborhood 
as  far  as  the  State  Home,  where,  through  the  perfect  dis 
cipline,  no  lives  had  been  sacrificed,  we  prepared  to  board 
the  first  train  to  Santa  Kosa,  hoping  to  find  another  to 
San  Francisco  in  the  afternoon.  And  the  trains  ran, 
though  not  on  time,  what  of  twisted  rails  and  litter  of  fallen 
water-tanks  along  the  roadway.  Eeports  of  the  Great  Fire 
and  broken  water-mains  in  San  Francisco  made  us  long 
to  be  in  at  the  incredible  disaster,  so  long  as  it  had  to  be. 

With  no  luggage  except  our  smallest  hand-bag,  which 


RETURN  TO  OAKLAND;  EARTHQUAKE   127 

we  left  with  the  restaurant  cashier  of  the  last  ferry-boat 
permitted  to  land  passengers  that  night,  we  started  afoot 
up  old  Broadway,  and  all  night  roamed  the  city  of  hills,  prey 
to  feelings  that  cannot  be  described.  That  night  proved 
our  closest  to  realizing  a  dream  that  came  now  and 
again  to  Jack  in  sleep,  that  he  and  I  were  in  at  the  finish 
of  all  things — standing  or  moving  hand  in  hand  through 
chaos  to  its  brink,  looking  upon  the  rest  of  mankind  in  the 
process  of  dissolution. 

Having  located  relatives  I  knew  had  been  overtaken,  and 
found  them  unharmed,  Jack  and  I  were  free  to  follow  our 
own  will. 

"And  I'll  never  write  about  this  for  anybody, "  he  de 
clared,  as  we  looked  our  last  upon  one  or  another  familiar 
haunt,  soon  to  be  obliterated  by  the  ravaging  flames  that 
drove  us  ever  westward  to  safer  points,  on  and  on,  in  our 
ears  the  muffled  detonations  of  dynamite,  as  one  proud  com 
mercial  palace  after  another  sank  on  its  steel  knees,  in  the 
desperate  attempt  of  the  city  fathers  to  stay  the  wholesale 
conflagration.  And  no  water. 

' '  No, ' '  Jack  reiterated.  *  *  I  '11  never  write  a  word  about 
it.  What  use  trying?  One  could  only  string  big  words  to 
gether,  and  curse  the  futility  of  them." 

One  impinging  picture  of  those  fearful  hours  was  where 
two  mounted  officers,  alone  of  all  the  population,  sat  their 
high-crested  horses  at  Kearney  and  Market  Streets,  eques 
trian  statues  facing  the  oncoming  flames  along  Kearney. 
Hours  earlier,  we  had  walked  here,  two  of  many;  but  now 
the  district  was  abandoned  to  destruction  that  could  not 
be  retarded. 

In  my  eyes  there  abides  the  face  of  a  stricken  man,  per 
haps  a  fireman,  whom  we  saw  carried  into  a  lofty  doorway 
in  Union  Square.  His  back  had  been  broken,  and  as  the 
stretcher  bore  him  past,  out  of  a  handsome,  ashen  young 
face,  the  dreadful  darkening  eyes  looked  right  into  mine. 
All  the  world  was  crashing  about  him  and  he,  a  broken  thing, 


128  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

with  death  awaiting  him  inside  the  granite  portals,  gazed 
upon  the  last  woman  of  his  race  that  he  was  ever  to  see. 
Jack,  with  tender  hand,  drew  me  away. 

Oh,  the  supreme  ruth  of  desolation  and  pain,  that  night 
of  fire  and  devastation !  Yet  the  miracle  persists,  that  one 
saw  nothing  but  cheerful  courtesy  of  one  human  to  another. 
And  I  was  to  learn  more  of  my  mate's  cool  judgment  in 
crises.  Now  and  again  it  seemed  as  if  we  would  surely  be 
trapped  in  some  square,  where  the  fourth  side  had  started 
to  burn.  But  he  had  always,  and  accurately,  sensed  and 
chosen  the  moment  and  the  way  out,  when  we  should  have 
seen  all  we  could  risk. 

Toward  morning,  finding  ourselves  in  the  entryway  of 
a  corner  house  on  "Nob  Hill"  very  near  the  partially- 
erected  and  already-ignited  Hotel  Fairmont,  Jack  fell  into  a 
doze;  but  I  was  unable  to  still  the  tingling  of  heart  and 
nerves  long  enough  to  drop  off  even  from  exhaustion. 
Presently  a  man  mounted  the  steps  and  inserted  a  key  in 
the  lock.  Seeing  Jack  and  myself  on  the  top  tread — he  had 
had  to  pick  his  way  through  a  cluster  of  Italians  and  China 
men  on  the  lower  ones — something  impelled  him  to  invite 
us  in.  It  was  a  luxurious  interior,  containing  the  treasures 
of  years.  His  name  was  Ferine,  the  man  said,  and  he  did 
not  learn  ours.  Suddenly,  midway  of  showing  us  about,  he 
asked  me  to  try  the  piano,  and  laid  bare  the  keys.  I  hesi 
tated — it  seemed  almost  a  cruel  thing  to  do,  with  anni 
hilation  of  his  home  so  very  near.  But  Jack's  whispered 
"Do  it  for  him — it's  the  last  time  he'll  ever  hear  it," 
sent  me  to  the  instrument.  The  first  few  touches  were 
enough  and  too  much  for  Mr.  Ferine,  however,  and  he  made 
a  restraining  gesture.  If  he  ever  reads  this  book,  I  want 
him  to  know  that  none  in  poor  racked  San  Francisco  that 
week  was  more  sorry  for  him  than  we. 

We  must  have  tramped  forty  miles  that  night.  Jack's 
feet  blistered,  my  ankles  were  become  almost  useless,  when 


EETUBN  TO  OAKLAND;  EARTHQUAKE   129 

next  day  we  sat  on  a  convenient  garbage  can  at  Seventh  and 
Broadway,  Oakland,  waiting  for  a  street  car  out  Telegraph 
Avenue.  A  pretty  young  woman  accosted  the  dilapidated 
pair  we  made,  with  information  that  food  and  shelter  would 
be  supplied  us  refugees  at  such-and-such  address,  and 
laughed  pleasedly  when  we  thanked  her  and  said  we  had  an 
uninjured  place  of  our  own.  Oakland  had  suffered  com 
paratively  little  from  the  quake,  and  there  were  few  fires. 
Jack  of  course  had  ascertained,  before  we  went  to  San  Fran 
cisco,  that  his  mother  and  his  children  were  safe  and  sound, 
with  roofs  over  their  heads. 

In  Glen  Ellen  once  more,  we  were  met  with  frantic  tele 
grams  from  Collier's  Weekly,  asking  for  twenty-five  hun 
dred  words,  by  wire,  descriptive  of  San  Francisco.  Jack, 
still  averse  to  undertake  the  compressing  of  his  impressions, 
or,  as  he  had  said,  writing  at  all  on  the  subject,  yet  con 
sidered  his  now  aggravated  money-need,  with  the  yacht 
and  barn-rebuilding  in  view.  And  Collier's  had  offered  him 
twenty-five  cents  a  word — by  far  the  best  figure  he  had  yet 
received.  It  was,  I  may  as  well  note  here,  the  highest  he 
ever  obtained. 

Shaking  his  bonny  shoulders  free  of  all  else,  that 
very  day  he  jumped  into  the  twenty-five  hundred  word 
article.  Hot  from  his  hand  I  snatched  the  scribbled  sheets, 
and  swiftly  typed  them.  Our  team-work  soon  delivered  the 
story  over  the  wires,  and  "just  for  luck"  Jack  mailed  the 
manuscript  simultaneously.  Followed  wild  daily  messages 
from  Collier's  for  a  week  to  come :  "  Why  doesn't  your  story 
arrive  V9  il  Must  have  your  story  immediately, ' '  and,  latest, 
"Holding  presses  at  enormous  expense.  What  is  the  mat 
ter?  Must  have  story  for  May  Fifth  number. " 

It  seems  that  the  telegraph  companies  were  able  to  get 
service  through  to  the  Pacific  Coast,  but  not  the  reverse. 
The  posted  manuscript  was  received  in  the  nick  of  time, 


130  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

while  the  wired  one  straggled  along  subsequently  to  the 
other's  appearance  in  the  May  5th  issue. 

Jack,  it  is  only  fair  to  record,  entertained  the  poorest 
opinion  of  his  description.  ''It's  the  best  stagger  I  can 
make  at  an  impossible  thing, "  is  the  way  he  put  it.  And 
here  is  an  excerpt  from  a  letter  to  George  Sterling,  dated 
May  31: 

"Hopper's  article  in  Everybody's  is  great.    Best  story  of  the 
Quake  I've  seen.     My  congratulations  to  him." 

Fifteen  days  after  the  Earthquake,  we  treated  ourselves 
to  a  two-weeks'  holiday.  Jack  bestrode  Ban.  Belle,  oc 
cupied  with  maternal  prospects,  I  passed  by  in  favor  of 
the  rabbity  Fleet.  Hatless,  with  toilet  accessories  and  read 
ing  matter  stowed  in  saddle-bags  behind  our  Australian 
saddles,  we  set  out  northerly  to  see  what  the  quake  had 
wreaked  upon  rural  California.  At  this  and  that  resort, 
we  would  feel  one  or  another  of  the  many  lighter  temblors 
that  followed  the  big  shake,  marking  the  subsidence  of  the 
"Fault"  that  is  supposed  to  enter  from  the  sea-bed  at  Fort 
Bragg,  and  zigzag  southeasterly  across  the  State. 

Jack,  his  rumpled  poll  sun-burned  yellow,  was  a  brave 
and  lovesome  sight  on  his  merry  steed,  whose  burnished 
chestnut  coat  threw  out  lilac  gleams  as  the  satiny  muscles 
moved  in  the  sunlight.  The  rider  threw  himself  with  vim 
into  our  little  adventure.  He  was  never  tired  exploring 
with  me  the  nooks  of  Sonoma  County,  where  Belle  and 
I  had  been  familiar  figures  before  he  came  to  dwell  with 
us.  And  we  always  found  so  many  common  topics  to  dis 
cuss,  and  parallels  in  our  lives.  Why,  old  man  Tarwater. 
immortalized  in  one  of  the  very  last  stories  Jack  ever 
wrote  ("Like  Argus  of  the  Olden  Times,"  published  in 
1919  in  volume  entitled  "The  Red  One"),  had  been  the  sub 
ject  of  one  of  my  Aunt's  newspaper  articles.  I  had  accom 
panied  her,  years  before  Jack  met  Tarwater  in  Klondike,  on 
a  pilgrimage  to  his  mountain  cabin,  and  sketched  that  abode 


RETURN  TO  OAKLAND;  EARTHQUAKE   131 

and  himself  for  an  illustration.  And  there  were  our  teachers 
in  Oakland,  Mrs.  Harriet  J.  Lee  and  her  daughter  Elsie — we 
had  both  sat  under  these  charming  women,  Jack  in  High 
School,  and  I  in  Sunday  school  at  Plymouth  Avenue  Church 
on  Thirty-fourth  Street.  It  was  deliciously  preposterous, 
this  lining  up  of  our  mutual  experiences. 

Not  a  tap  of  work  did  we  perform  on  this  real  vacation. 
There  is  ample  material  in  my  brain  for  a  readable  book,  in 
that  idyllic  journey  through  one  of  California's  most  attrac 
tive  regions,  unadvertised  and  undreamed  to  the  casual 
tourist.  Although  I  may  not  relate  the  details,  still,  for 
the  guidance  of  any  whose  interest  in  Jack  London's  mazy 
trail  might  lead  them  into  these  western  fastnesses  of  great 
beauty  and  geological  interest,  I  present  the  route  our 
nimble  horses  bore  us: 

From  Glen  Ellen,  by  Rincon  Valley  road,  through  Petri 
fied  Forest,  to  Calistoga,  in  Napa  Valley.  Calistoga  to  The 
Geysers.  Thence  to  Lakeport,  on  Clear  Lake — a  little 
Geneva — by  way  of  Highland  Springs.  We  sailed  on  Clear 
Lake. 

Lakeport  to  Ukiah,  via  Laurel  Dell,  Blue  Lakes.  Ukiah 
to  Willitts.  Through  grandeurs  of  mountain  and  red 
wood  forest,  to  logging  camp  "Alpine."  Thence  to  Fort 
Bragg,  on  the  Coast. 

From  Fort  Bragg,  down  the  coast,  sleeping  at  lumber 
villages.  Navarro,  Albion,  Greenwood.  Thence  to  Boon- 
ville,  with  luncheon  at  Philo.  Philo  to  Cloverdale ;  thence 
to  Burke 's  Sanitarium.  Thence  to  Santa  Rosa,  and  on 
down  to  Glen  Ellen. 

Jack,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  had  studied  the 
brain-processes  of  animals  since  the  days  of  his  little  dog 
Rollo  in  Oakland.  On  this  long  ride,  the  difference,  which 
is  all  the  difference  in  the  world,  which  he  noticed  between 
Fleet  and  Ban  on  our  return,  was  that  one  was  tired  and 


132  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

showed  it,  and  the  other,  Thoroughbred,  keyed  to  the  utter 
most  step,  was  tired  and  did  not  know  it.  But  when  Jack, 
after  unsaddling,  had  placed  an  extra  large  measure  of  oats 
before  the  splendid  creature,  the  velvet  nozzle  went  down 
with  a  great,  blowing  sigh.  Brown  Wolf,  wriggling  prodigi 
ously,  came  to  bury  dumb,  eloquent  head  between  his  idol 
ized  master's  knees,  after  which,  with  a  shake  of  rolling  fur 
hide,  he  went  to  poke  his  nose  into  Ban's  fodder,  taking  a 
generous  mouthful,  to  our  astonishment  and  the  horse's 
snorting  disapproval.  Then,  our  fingers  interlaced,  we 
two  dusty  wayfarers  trudged  across  to  Wake  Eobin,  happier 
and  richer  by  another  united  experience. 

Near  the  end  of  the  month,  during  our  absence  of  two 
days  in  Oakland  to  attend  a  rousing  Euskin  Club  dinner  in 
Jack's  honor,  Willie  one  night  left  Ban  out  in  the  Fish 
Eanch  pasture,  where  he  became  entangled  in  a  loose  strand 
of  that  accursed  invention,  barbed  wire,  which  had  eluded 
our  vigilance.  Hour  upon  hour,  the  poor,  helpless  thing 
sawed  one  of  his  beautiful,  fleet  hind  legs  to  the  bone.  It 
was  a  sad  homecoming  to  us,  and  in  consultation  beside 
our  drooping,  ruined  pet  we  decided  he  must  die.  Jack 
said,  his  eyes  dark  with  sorrow: 

"Wiget,  I'll  do  it  if  I  have  to;  but  I  don't  want  to.  If 
you  don't  mind  too  much  ..."  And  Wiget  had  to  avert 
his  face  as  he  replied:  "I'll  do  it  for  you  folks." 

In  a  hammock  at  the  Lodge  we  sat  knowing  we  could  not 
fail  to  hear  the  shot  that  would  be  the  ending  of  our  willing 
and  beloved  friend.  Jack  had  carefully  instructed  his  man 
to  deposit  the  charge  in  the  middle  of  the  forehead,  where 
cross-lines  drawn  from  ears  to  eyes  would  intersect.  When 
the  sound  of  the  shot  rang  across  the  waiting  stillness,  we 
wept  unrestrained  and  unabashed  in  each  other's  arms.  All 
I  could  think  of  to  solace  Jack  was  to  offer  him  the  gift  of 
my  own  new  filly,  Sonoma  Maid,  granddaughter  of  the  great 
Morella,  which  Belle,  in  the  fullness  of  her  time  and  in  our 
absence,  had  presented  to  me. 


KETURN  TO  OAKLAND;  EARTHQUAKE   133 

I  remember,  once,  on  a  steamer  voyage,  that  a  fine 
horse  injured  during  a  rough  night  had  to  be  killed.  A 
lamentable  botch  was  made  of  the  execution,  and  I  never 
saw  Jack  London  worse  upset  than  he  was  over  the  reports 
of  the  animal's  inexcusably  hard  death.  "If  they'd  only 
learn  how  to  do  a  thing  like  that  in  the  right  way!"  he 
exclaimed,  thrashing  about  in  his  chair  in  a  manner  he 
had  when  suffering  mentally. 

A  preverted  order  of  humaneness,  often  displayed  by 
unthinking  persons,  always  came  in  for  harsh  language 
from  Jack.  "Men  who  brag  of  being  too  tender-hearted 
to  kill  an  aged  and  suffering  animal,  or  a  hopelessly- 
wounded  or  sick  one,"  he  would  rave," — I  don't  know  any 
thing  too  bad  for  them.  Why  don't  people  think!"  And 
again :  "The  only  way  to  kill  a  cat  is  to  chop  off  its  head," 
he  preached.  "Death  is  instantaneous,  when  the  spinal 
cord  is  severed.  Drowning,  and  suffocation  by  chloroform, 
are  two  of  the  cruelest  methods  you  can  use  on  a  cat.  The 
other  way  means  instantaneous  death,  with  no  terrors  of 
strangulation.  Some  people  think  I'm  brutal  to  advise  this, 
but  the  thing  is  self-evident — oh,  what 's  the  use ! "  he  would 
surrender  in  disgust.  In  illustration  of  indirect  brutality, 
he  told  me  of  something  he  had  done  during  a  short  camp 
ing  expedition,  in  1904,  with  "The  Crowd,"  on  the  deserted 
Kendall  Ranch  in  Grizzly  Canyon,  near  Moraga  Valley. 

The  last  tenants  had  left  some  time  previously,  and 
were  too  sensitive  and  kind-hearted  to  lay  away  the  family 
dog,  a  large  collie,  I  think  Jack  said,  who  was  tottering, 
from  starvation,  too  old  to  hunt  for  himself.  "Nobody 
else  wanted  the  job  of  shooting  him,"  Jack  went  on,  "and 
it  was  up  to  me.  You  know  how  I  love  to  kill  things,"  he 
interpolated  with  a  wry  mouth.  "I  got  the  shotgun  ready, 
and  went  toward  that  poor  dog,  and  he  crouched  when  he 
saw  me  coming.  God!  no  one  will  ever  know  how  I  shrank 
from  that  self-imposed  task.  That  dog  knew — his  poor 
old  eyes  looked  straight  into  mine  and  did  not  waver — but 


134  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

the  knowledge  of  death  was  in  them.  He'd  been  out  with  a 
gun  too  much  in  his  life  not  to  know  what  it  meant  when 
one  was  aimed  at  a  living  creature.  .  .  .  Oh,  yes,  I  got  it 
done — first  charge  .  .  .  He  never  moved  after  he  dropped. ' ' 

Jack  was  capable  of  such  adorable  ways.  One  after 
noon,  that  summer  of  1906,  he  and  I,  with  Manyoungi's  help 
were  sorting  over  old  possessions,  making  ready  long  in 
advance  for  our  voyage.  The  Korean  came  upon  my  old 
French  doll,  an  adult-appearing,  jointed  model  with  six 
inches  of  "real"  hair.  Lifting  it  tenderly,  reverence  in 
his  handsome  olive  face,  the  boy  carried  it  to  Jack,  who 
was  talking  to  himself  amidst  a  tumbled  mountain  of 
dusty  books — he  invariably  talked  and  hummed  when  doing 
work  of  this  kind  or  filing  letters.  And  Jack,  with  a  dewy 
look  in  his  great  eyes,  held  out  both  grimy  hands  for  the 
relic,  and  kissed  it!  The  act  was  devoid  of  affectation 
— just  a  spontaneous  expression  of  all  the  complication 
of  his  love.  "The  little  woman's  doll!"  was  all  he  said,  re 
turning  to  his  work  with  an  odd  smile  deepening  the  ' '  pic 
tured  corners"  of  his  mouth.  .  .  .  Once,  "after  long  grief 
and  pain, ' '  in  rare  abandon  he  had  pressed  those  lips  to  the 
hem  of  my  garment. 

Even  from  so  brief  an  absence  as  the  riding  jaunt,  our 
duties  had  piled  up,  and  we  were  rushing  all  hours  except 
for  the  swimming,  rides  to  the  Ranch,  the  campfire  gather 
ings,  moonlight  romps  and  games,  with  boxing,  fencing, 
kiting,  and  what  not,  in  the  camps  of  the  Connings,  the 
Selbys,  the  Brecks,  the  Reynolds,  and  my  own  summering 
families. 

Blowing  soap-bubbles  was  popular  for  a  time,  and  cer 
tain  long-stemmed  Korean  pipes,  among  Jack's  "loot" 
from  the  orient,  came  into  novel  requisition.  There  were 
debates  of  evenings  in  the  Lodge,  to  which  the  older  campers 
were  invited,  in  which  the  materialist  monist,  Jack  London, 
was  somewhat  unwillingly  pitted  against  Mr.  Edward  B. 


BETUB-N  TO  OAKLAND;  EARTHQUAKE   135 

Payne,  a  far  older  man  whom  Jack  styled  "metaphysi 
cian."  I  should  have  said  attempted  debate,  for  the  same 
familiar  stumbling-block  was  encountered  that  had  dis 
rupted  earlier  discussions  whenever  Jack  and  the  meta 
physicians  locked  horns :  Jack  could  not  and  would  not  ac 
cept  the  premise  offered;  and  after  several  futile  efforts 
of  the  instigators  of  the  meetings,  to  ease  him  surrepti 
tiously  over  the  first  stages  of  the  argument,  the  debates 
were  discontinued. 

"Edward's  got  a  beautiful  mind,  and  he's  the  most 
logical  rhetorician  I  ever  met  in  my  whole  life, ' '  Jack  would 
defend  himself;  "but  when,  in  his  reasoning,  he  comes  to 
the  enchanted  bridge  he  has  tried  to  build,  on  which  I  am 
supposed  to  reject  my  solid  foundation  and  step  across  to 
his  metaphysical  one,  I  revolt."  Martin  Luther's  "Here  I 
stand.  I  can  do  no  otherwise,  so  help  me  God !  Amen ! ' '  was 
no  less  firm  than  Jack  London's  "I  can't  help  it.  I  am  so 
made.  I  can't  see  it  any  other  way.  I've  got  to  keep  my 
feet  on  the  concrete." 

I  have  seen  him  quite  white  with  distress  that  he  had  to 
spoil  a  party  by  depriving  guests  of  the  spectacle  of  him 
self  routed  from  his  materialistic  terra  firma  and  driven 
upon  the  impalpable  ground  of  the  metaphysicians  with 
their,  to  him,  "colossal  evasions  of  mundane  interpreta 
tions,"  as  our  friend  Mary  Wilshire  puts  it.  "Each  of 
you,"  he  said,  "goes  into  his  own  consciousness  to  explain 
anything  and  everything."  Again,  "The  metaphysician 
explains  the  universe  by  himself,  the  scientist  explains  him 
self  by  the  universe."  Jack  believed  that  the  keenest  and 
most  irresistible  impulses  toward  self-preservation  are 
shown  by  what  he  termed  metaphysicians.  "Take  the 
earthquake,  for  instance,"  he  would  rail.  "You  and  I, 
and  an  infidel  artist,  remained  in  our  beds  until  well  after 
the  shock.  And  when  we  emerged,  where  did  we  find  the 
metaphysicians  of  the  household? — Out  of  doors,  in  un 
seemly  attire,  and  unable  to  tell  how  they  got  there,  but, 


136  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

from  circumstantial  evidence,  having  arrived  on  the  un 
stable  earth  by  way  of  a  first-story  window ! ' y 

There  were  swimming  visits  exchanged  that  year  with 
our  neighbors  the  Kudolf  Spreckelses  and  a  bevy  of  Mrs. 
Spreckels  's  sisters,  the  Misses  Joliffe ;  and  once  we  went  to 
to  Napa  to  see  the  Winships.  But  Jack,  as  a  rule,  was  not 
fond  of  visiting,  and  occasionally  was  heard  to  remark  that 
the  Winships  and  the  Sterlings  were  practically  the  only 
friends  to  whose  houses  he  went,  and  these  at  wide  intervals. 
He  preferred,  in  short,  to  entertain  rather  than  to  be  enter 
tained. 

At  times,  but  rarely,  he  would  treat  himself  to  a  holiday, 
perhaps  to  read  aloud  a  book  that  had  claimed  him  for  the 
moment,  or  to  take  some  special  jaunt.  But  the  fingers  of 
one  hand  could  easily  tally  the  days  when  he  failed  to 
deliver  ten  pages  of  hand-written  manuscript  to  my  type 
writer  desk.  It  was  my  custom  to  have  his  previous 
day's  instalment,  typed  and  words  counted,  in  readiness 
upon  his  table  by  nine.  He  loved  to  read  me  his  morn 
ing  's  work — and  even  in  the  writing  of  it,  if  I  happened 
to  pass  by,  would  interrupt  himself  to  let  me  share  what  he 
had  done.  The  first  writing  day,  in  all  our  days,  that  this 
did  not  happen,  was  the  first  day  upon  which  he  wrote  no 
more. 

Evidently  this  life  of  closely-wedged  activities  was  quite 
to  my  taste,  for  at  the  end  of  one  date 's  diary-items  I  see : 
' 1  Happy  as  an  angel !"  This  may,  however,  have  been 
when  I  had  won  from  Jack  some  praise  or  especial  appre 
ciation;  but  he  was  wont  ruefully  to  utter  that  my  finest 
heights  of  bliss  were  attained  when  I  had  beaten  him  at 
cards  (which  was  seldom  enough  to  justify  chortling), 
or  won  a  bet  upon  the  weather  ranging  anywhere  from  ten 
cents  to  ten  dollars. 

Another  and  sweeter  source  of  happiness  to  me  would  be 
when  I  had  played  an  hour  for  him  while  he  sat  or  reclined, 
one  hand  over  his  eyes,  dreaming  upon  a  couch  in  Auntie's 


RETURN  TO  OAKLAND;  EARTHQUAKE   137 

cool  living-room.  The  music  he  then  oftenest  asked  for  was 
Arthur  Footers  Rubaiyat  Suite,  and  much  of  Macdowell — 
"The  Eagle "  and  "Sea  Pieces "  remaining  favorites.  His 
disposition  those  days  was  almost  always  equable,  and  I 
learned  to  circumvent  the  blues  he  had  once  forewarned  he 
might  be  subject  to  upon  the  day  of  completing  a  long  man 
uscript.  On  June  7,  he  laid  down  his  ink-pencil  for  the  last 
time  on  "Before  Adam,"  first  writing  in  my  count  of  40,863 
words.  But  there  was  little  or  no  depression  to  follow.  I 
had  seen  to  that,  by  planning  a  string  of  overlapping  en 
gagements  for  the  day,  which  left  him  no  moment  for  relax 
ing  until  sleep-time  was  at  hand.  Oh,  no — never  did  I  cheat 
myself  into  believing  that  he  did  not  see  through  my  mach 
inations;  rather,  did  he  cooperate — but  no  word  jarred 
the  moment's  harmony. 

Have  I  mentioned  that  he  was  fond  of  ordering  adver 
tised  articles!  "And  if  one  out  of  ten  proves  a  real  find, 
I  am  repaid  for  my  time  and  money !"  was  his  argument. 
Many  were  the  packages,  great  and  small,  that  enlivened 
our  morning  mail  during  preparation  for  the  small-boat  voy 
age  ;  for  whether  emanating  from  "  ad "  or  catalogue,  Jack 
meant  to  leave  nothing  behind  that  would  contribute  to  the 
venture 's  success.  Fishing  tackle  of  the  most  alluring;  num 
berless  strings  of  beads,  and  loose  beads  by  the  gross,  of  all 
sizes  and  hues  to  gladden  savage  hearts  that  beat  under  the 
Southern  Cross ;  gay  neckerchiefs  and  calicoes  and  ribbons 
— nothing  was  omitted.  And  the  fun  we,  like  veriest  chil 
dren,  had  opening  our  "Christmas  packages"  from  day 
to  day,  can  best  be  imagined. 

Early  in  our  comradeship  I  had  noted  Jack's  habit  of 
looking  ahead,  not  back.  "Leave  retrospect  to  old  men 
and  women.  The  world  is  all  before  me  now,"  was  his 
pose  toward  the  dead  past.  While  this  remained  a  charac 
teristic,  the  general  normal  happiness  of  his  new  environ 
ment  rendered  him  less  averse  to  dwelling  upon  his  yes 
terdays.  As  our  united  yesterdays  lengthened  in  our 


138  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

shadow,  he  became  as  fondly  addicted  as  I  to  reminiscence 
of  them. 

Before  me,  as  I  write  with  his  own  pen,  lies  a  clipping 
referring  to  "The  Iron  Heel,"  which  begins:  "In  one  of 
Jack  London's  less  important  works,  there  was  a  descrip 
tion  of  a  pitched  battle  in  Chicago,  in  the  near  future,  by 
way  of  quelling  what  would  now  be  called  a  Bolshevist  revo 
lution."  And  the  commentator  adds:  "Now  the  battle 
is  going  on  in  Berlin."  Beside  the  clipping  reposes  a  let 
ter  to  me  from  a  sociologist,  from  which  I  quote  as  refuta 
tion  of  the  other's  phrase,  "less  important  works": 

"The  earlier  portion  of  the  book  is  the  most  impressive, 
the  most  unanswerable  impeachment  of  the  capitalist  sys 
tem  to  be  found  in  all  the  voluminous  sociological  literature 
of  our  times." 

And  I  feel  free  to  quote  Mr.  George  P.  Brett,  President 
of  The  Macmillan  Company,  who  published  the  book : 

"I  consider  'The  Iron  Heel'  the  greatest  compendium 
of  Socialism  ever  written." 

From  week  to  week,  in  these  stirring  days  of  reconstruc 
tion  following  the  World  War,  there  come  to  me,  alone 
upon  Jack  London's  mountainside,  appreciations  from  all 
classes  concerning  "The  Iron  Heel,"  once  hated  and  de 
rided  and  feared  by  the  factions  most  opposed  to  one  an 
other.  Jack  had  gone  to  work  upon  it  that  midsummer  of 
1906,  placing  some  of  its  scenes  round-about  "the  sweet 
land"  in  which  he  had  elected  to  dwell.  When  the  manu 
script  later  failed  to  find  place  in  any  paying  magazine,  and 
saw  book-covers,  in  1907  during  the  "panic,"  mainly  be 
cause  the  publishers  held  a  blanket  contract  bearing  Jack 
London's  sprawling  signature,  the  poor  author  said  regret 
fully  one  day  in  Hawaii : 

"I  thought  it  would  be  timely,  that  book;  but  they're  all 
afraid  of  it,  Mate  Woman."  He  pointed  to  letters  just 


EETUBN  TO  OAKLAND;  EARTHQUAKE   139 

received  from  the  States :  ' '  See :  the  socialists,  even  my  own 
crowd,  have  thrown  me  down — they  decry  it  as  a  lugubrious 
prophecy;  and  the  other  camp,  of  course,  revile  it  as  they 
revile  everything  socialistic  they  possibly  can  of  mine. 

"But,"  he  broke  in  heatedly  upon  his  reverie,  "I  didn't 
write  the  thing  as  a  prophecy  at  all.  I  really  don't  think 
these  things  are  going  to  happen  in  the  United  States.  I 
believe  the  increasing  socialist  vote  will  prevent — hope  for 
it,  anyhow.  But  I  will  say  that  I  sent  out,  in  'The  Iron 
Heel/  a  warning  of  what  I  think  might  happen  if  they  don't 
look  to  their  votes.  That's  all." 

In  the  copy  he  gave  me  is  written :  "We  that  have  been 
what  we  Ve  been.  .  .  .  We  that  have  seen  what  we  've  seen — 
we  may  not  see  these  particular  things  come  to  pass,  but  cer 
tain  it  is  that  we  shall  see  big  things  of  some  sort  come  to 
pass." 

In  the  light  of  present  events,  the  story  would  seem  to 
have  been  more  than  roughly  prophetic ;  and  the  end,  may 
hap,  is  not  yet. 

The  phrase  "well-balanced  radicals"  came  to  be  a  pet 
aversion  of  Jack's  for  the  rest  of  his  life.  For,  outside  of 
the  capitalist  class,  it  was  the  self -named  "well-balanced 
radicals,"  who  would  have  none  of  his  "Iron  Heel." 

Yet  it  was  one  of  these,  after  Jack  London 's  death,  who 
wrote  me:  "The  earlier  portion  of  the  book  is  the  most 
impressive,  the  most  unanswerable  impeachment  of  the 
capitalist  system  to  be  found  in  all  the  voluminous  socio 
logical  literature  of  our  times.  I  have  read  many  severe 
criticisms  of  capitalist  procedure,  but  this  cuts  deeper  and 
cleaner  than  they  all." 

4 '  The  Iron  Heel, ' '  once  finished  and  started  on  its  round 
of  the  magazines,  Jack's  next  contemplated  book  was  a 
group  of  tramping  episodes,  brought  out  serially  as  "My 
Life  in  the  Underworld, ' '  and,  in  book-form, ' '  The  Road. ' ' 

Two  paragraphs  from  Jack's  letters  to  George  Sterling, 


140  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

of  dates  February  17,  1908,  and  March  3,  1909,  throw 
illumination  upon  his  open  attitude  toward  his  past : 

"I  can't  get  a  line  on  why  you  wish  I  hadn't  written  'The 
Boad,'  "  he  challenges.  "It  is  all  true.  It  is  what  I  am, 
what  I  have  done,  and  it  is  part  of  the  process  by  which 
I  have  become.  Is  it  a  lingering  taint  of  the  bourgeois  in 
you  that  makes  you  object?  Is  it  because  of  my  shameless- 
ness!  For  having  done  things  in  which  I  saw  or  see  no 
shame!  Do  tell  me." 

And  this : 

"Your  point  about  'The  Boad,'  namely  that  it  'gave  the 
mob  a  mop  to  bang'  me  with.  What  of  it!  I  don't  care 
for  the  mob.  It  can't  hurt  me.  One  word  of  censure  or 
disapproval  from  you  would  hurt  me  a  few  million  myriads 
of  billions  times  more  than  all  the  sum  total  the  mob  would 
inflict  on  me  in  one  hundred  and  forty-seven  lifetimes.  I 
thank  the  Lord  I  don't  live  for  the  mob." 

This  seems  the  place  to  point  Jack's  intolerance  of 
restricted  or  anachronistic  vision,  by  quoting  further  from 
letters  to  Sterling.  The  latter  sat  between  the  horns  of 
a  dilemma  with  regard  to  his  two  closest  friends — Jack 
London  and  Ambrose  Bierce,  who  were  as  far  apart  as 
the  poles  in  their  philosophies.  Because  Jack  had  experi 
enced  certain  phases  of  living  which  were  untenable  to  the 
satirist's  niceties,  the  latter  seemed  entirely  to  discount  the 
younger  author  as  one  entitled  to  consideration  in  the 
brotherhood  of  polite  society.  In  short,  after  he  had  read 
"The  Eoad,"  Mr.  Bierce  was  emphatic  in  his  opinion  con 
cerning  what  summary  disposal  should  be  made  of  Jack. 
But  Jack,  with  a  generosity  and  lack  of  bitterness  which 
would  have  well  become  the  elder  man,  wrote  Sterling : 

"For  heaven's  sake  don't  you  quarrel  with  Ambrose 
about  me.  He's  too  splendid  a  man  to  be  diminished  be 
cause  he  has  lacked  access  to  a  later  generation  of  science. 
He  crystallized  before  you  and  I  were  born,  and  it  is  too 
magnificent  a  crystallization  to  quarrel  with." 


RETURN  TO  OAKLAND;  EARTHQUAKE   141 

Earlier  letters  to  Sterling  amplify  Jack's  contention, 
and  his  own  up-to-the-mark  step  with  the  marching  world : 

"If  Hillquit  and  Hunter  didn't  put  it  all  over  Bierce — I'll 
quit  thinking  at  all.  Bierce 's  clever  pessimism  was  no 
where  against  their  science.  He  proved  himself  rudderless, 
compassless,  and  chartless.  Bierce  doesn't  shine  in  a  face 
to  face  battle  with  socialists.  He 's  beat  at  long  range  sling 
ing  ink.  He  was  groggy  at  the  drop  of  the  hat,  and  before 
they  got  done  with  him  was  looking  anxiously  around  and 
wondering  why  the  gong  didn't  ring.  All  he  did  was  to 
back  and  fill  and  potter  around,  dogmatize  and  contradict 
himself.  When  they  cornered  him,  he  went  off  on  another 
tack,  wherefore  they'd  overtake  him  and  lambaste  him 
again.  Bierce,  with  biological  and  sociological  concepts 
that  crystallized  in  the  fervant  heat  of  pessimism  a  genera 
tion  ago,  was — well,  pathetic.  And  more  pathetic  still,  he 
doesn  't  know  it. ' ' 

"I  wouldn't  care  to  lock  horns  with  Bierce,"  is  a  later 
reference.  "He  stopped  growing  a  generation  ago.  Of 
course,  he  keeps  up  with  the  newspapers,  but  his  criteria 
crystallized  30  odd  years  ago.  Had  he  been  born  a  genera 
tion  later  he'd  have  been  a  socialist,  and,  more  likely,  an 
anarchist.  He  never  reads  books  that  aren't  something  like 
a  hundred  years  old,  and  he  glories  in  the  fact ! ' ' 

The  latest  remarks  I  find,  in  the  same  correspondence, 
are  these  written  from  Hilo,  Hawaii,  in  July  of  1907 : 

'  '  The  quotes  from  Ambrose  were  great.  What  a  pen  he 
wields.  Too  bad  he  hasn't  a  better  philosophic  founda 
tion.  " 


CHAPTER  XXX 

SNARK  VOYAGE 
End  1906;   1907-8-9 

THE  Great  Earthquake  proved  very  expensive  to  Jack 
London.  Primarily  because  of  it,  the  yacht-building, 
which  he  had  calculated  would  cost  seven  thousand  dollars, 
or  at  most  ten,  incredibly  squandered  some  thirty  thousand. 
The  iron  keel  was  to  have  been  run  on  the  very  evening  of 
the  Earthquake,  April  18.  Following  that  event  (which  we 
of  California  are  averse  to  term  an  "  Act  of  God, "  much  less 
one  of  a  beneficent  Providence),  what  Jack  should  have 
done,  too  late  he  came  to  see,  was  to  look  around  for  a  ready- 
built  hull.  At  almost  any  time  before  the  World  War,  fine 
deep-water  yachts  could  be  picked  up  on  the  Atlantic  sea 
board  at  a  tithe  of  their  original  cost.  In  future  years,  after 
the  abandonment  of  our  voyage,  Jack  pored  over  many  a 
blue-print  received  from  agents  in  the  east,  of  well-ap 
pointed  vessels  that  could  be  had  for  mere  songs. 

No  man  born  of  woman  could  forecast  the  insur 
mountable  anarchy  that  the  post-quake  and  fire-havoc 
wrought  in  building  conditions.  I  shall  leave  it  to  the 
reader  to  guess  at  the  inwardness  of  our  spirit-trial,  so 
lightly  sketched  in  the  first  article  ("The  Inconceivable  and 
Monstrous  ")  of  the  nineteen,  including  Foreward  and  Back- 
word,  that  compose  Jack  London's  "The  Cruise  of  the 
Snark."  This  collection  relates,  in  more  or  less  discon 
nected  fashion,  a  few  of  the  main  happenings  and  observa 
tions  incident  to  the  cruise.  My  own  book,  I  wish  to  mention 
here,  "The  Log  of  the  Snark,"  also  published  by  The  Mac- 
millan  Company,  gives,  as  its  name  implies,  the  consecutive 

142 


SNARK  VOYAGE  143 

journal  from  the  day  before  we  sailed  from  San  Francisco 
until  we  returned  to  California.  There  is  one  exception  to 
the  foregoing  statement.  My  two-years'  diary  being  too 
protracted  for  one  volume,  the  five-months'  experiences 
ashore  in  the  Hawaiian  Islands,  together  with  the  general 
details  of  our  1915  and  1916  visits,  form  a  bulky  book  by 
themselves,  which  also  appears  under  the  Macmillan  im 
print.  This  volume  I  have  revised  and  brought  up  to  date 
for  a  new  edition  in  1921.  Jack,  aside  from  his  incomplete 
Snark  record,  as  above,  devoted  himself  to  fiction,  which  I 
name  below,  inspired  by  the  Pacific  and  its  enchanting  isles, 
irrespective  of  other  books  in  which  incidents  from  his  South 
Sea  lore  appear,  such  as  "Michael  Brother  of  Jerry, " 
" Martin  Eden,"  "The  Bed  One,"  and  others.  Here  are 
the  strictly  tropical  ones : 

"Adventure,"  novel,  1911. 

"South  Sea  Tales, "1911. 

"The  House  of  Pride,"  1912. 

"A  Son  of  the  Sun, "1912. 

"Jerry  of  the  Islands,"  1918. 

The  opening  adjuration  in  "The  Inconceivable  and 
Monstrous ' '  sounds  the  note  adhered  to  by  Jack  throughout 
the  construction  and  manning  of  the  little  ship  that  was, 
we  fondly  believed,  to  be  our  home  for  indefinite  years  of 
adventure.  "Spare  no  expense"  was  the  slogan  he  im 
pressed  upon  his  lieutenant,  Roscoe.  And  no  matter  what 
exasperation  followed,  "gipsy  heart  to  gipsy  heart,"  un 
daunted  Jack  and  I  traced  our  route  upon  a  sizable  world- 
globe  bought  for  our  future  library. 

In  the  end,  allowing  for  all  the  heartbreaking  wastage 
and  plain  graft  that  sent  the  yacht,  half  a  year  late,  an  un 
finished,  internal  wreck  upon  the  high  seas  to  Honolulu, 
still  was  she,  with  her  sturdy  sticks  and  her  ribs  of  oak, 
pronounced  by  that  master-small-boat-sailor,  Jack  London, 
the  strongest  vessel  of  her  proportions  ever  launched — 


144  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

"Stronger,  even,  I  tell  you,"  he  held,  "than  the  Goya,  that 
made  the  Northwest  Passage. " 

Be  it  known,  once  and  for  all,  this  point  having  been 
airily  misrepresented  for  years,  that  every  human  being  of 
the  Snark's  complement  of  seven,  except  Jack  London  and 
myself,  who  worked  to  pay  them — every  soul,  I  say,  was 
drawing  a  salary  for  work  performed  or  unperformed  dur 
ing  that  crazy  traverse  of  2200  miles  to  Honolulu.  From 
every  class  of  society  over  the  wide  world  we  thought  to  cir 
cumnavigate — doctors,  lawyers,  beggarmen,  chiefs,  thieves, 
multimillionaires,  sailors  single  and  in  crews,  poets,  his 
torians,  geologists,  painters,  doctors  of  divinity — in  short, 
men,  women  and  children  of  every  color  and  occupation, 
wrote  or  telegraphed  or  paid  us  calls,  imploring  to  sail  on 
any  terms,  or  none.  They  even  appealed  for  the  privilege 
of  paying  lavishly  for  the  privilege.  One  there  was  who 
wrote:  "I  can  assure  you  that  I  am  eminently  respectable, 
but  find  other  respectable  people  tiresome. "  Since  he  ex 
pressed  an  overwhelming  desire  to  be  of  our  party,  we 
could  not  but  wonder  exactly  what  he  meant ! 

But  Jack  was  no  fool.  Whosoever  joined  the  Snark 
should  do  so  upon  a  stated  salary,  and  there  could  be  no  re 
criminations.  Inconceivably  and  monstrously,  there  were 
recriminations,  despite  the  precautionary  measures.  When 
all  but  one  of  our  first  company  returned  to  San  Fran 
cisco  before  we  had  left  Hawaii  for  the  equator,  the  menda 
cious  papers  flashed  reports  that  there  had  been  violence  fol 
lowing  disagreements  during  the  first  lap  of  the  cruise.  Jack 
London  his  own  Sea  Wolf,  was  the  implication,  of  course; 
and  what  could  Jack  do  but  grind  his  teeth,  and  then  laugh : 
"They  can  all  go  to  blazes!  You  and  I  know  better;  and 
what  really  counts  is  you  and  me ! ' ' 

Disagreements  there  had  been — but  I  employ  the  wrong 
word;  for  it  was  an  agreement,  quietly  arrived  at  between 
Jack  and  his  sailing  master  before  Honolulu  was  sighted, 
that  the  latter  should  go  home  at  his  leisure  from  that  port. 


FROM     RIGHT     TO     LEFT— JACK     LONDON,     LUTHER     BURBANK      (Plant 
Wizard),    PROFESSOR     EIKiAR    LUOIEN    LARKIN     (Astronomer) 


1900.      JATK    ON    THE    WAY    TO    LUTHER    BTTRBANK'S 


SNARK  VOYAGE  145 

A  younger  member  of  the  party  decided  to  return  to  college ; 
while  our  Japanese  cabin  boy,  Tochigi,  failed  to  conquer  an 
incorrigible  seasickness.  So  these  two,  also,  went  back  to 
California. 

It  all  boils  down  to  the  fact,  well-established  in  Jack's 
mind  and  my  own  from  our  incredulous  observations  of 
lack  of  discipline  and  neglect  of  property — "appalled  and 
bewildered "  my  diary  states  our  emotions — that  those  who 
deserted  the  Snark  merely  discovered  they  had  been  mis 
taken  in  thinking  sea-adventure  was  what  their  natures 
craved.  The  details  of  certain  unfairness  to  Jack  that 
were  so  blindly  practised,  I  omit.  However  inclined  to 
garrulousness  I  may  be  on  Jack's  behalf,  I  do  want  to  be 
fair  enough  to  all  of  them  in  their  blindness,  largely  to 
lay  the  blame,  as  already  hinted,  to  the  chaotic  circum 
stances  under  which  the  boat  was  built.  This,  in  the  last 
analysis,  had  worn  out  the  patience,  the  grit,  and  the  in 
dubitably  feeble  adventure-lust  that  had  been  the  reason 
for  their  engaging  in  the  enterprise. 

I  think  the  difference  between  them  and  ourselves  was 
that  Jack  and  I  knew  what  we  wanted,  and  in  unison  over 
took  it  in  spite  of  colossal  odds  from  all  sides;  while  the 
others  simply  had  mistaken  their  desires.  The  secret  of 
finding  our  rainbows'  ends  always,  I  am  sure,  lay  first 
and  last  in  our  knowledge  of  what  we  wanted.  The  longest 
search  never  palled,  because  the  search  was  an  end  in 
itself.  Of  one  of  our  men,  who  had  failed  to  fill  even 
the  berth  of  a  preceding  failure,  Jack  said:  "He  caught  a 
glimpse,  in  some  metallic,  cog-like  way,  of  the  spirit  of 
Adventure,  and  he  thought  to  woo  her — Adventure,  who 
must  be  served  whole-souled  and  single-hearted  and  with 
the  long  patience  that  is  so  terrible  that  very  few  are  capable 
of  it." 

But  I  am  ahead  of  my  narrative : 

Early  in  the  year,  with  the  framework  of  the  yacht  just 
begun,  Jack  had  written  to  a  magazine  the  letter  given  be- 


146  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

low,  outlining  the  purposed  voyage  and  offering  a  chance 
at  the  story  of  the  cruise. 

Here  let  me  remark  that  a  leading  reason  for  the  in 
clusion  of  this  correspondence  is  to  emphasize  the  exact 
proposition  which  Jack  London  made.  This,  in  turn,  be 
cause,  following  his  death,  one  journalist,  in  an  otherwise 
gracious  and  well-meaning  article,  created,  unintentionally 
I  wish  to  believe,  a  misapprehension  in  the  minds  of  his 
many  readers  as  to  happenings  in  connection  with  the  ar 
rangement  for  the  boat-articles.  During  a  call  with  which 
this  writer  honored  the  Jack  London  Ranch  after  Jack's 
passing,  I  threatened  that  I  should,  in  all  friendliness,  go 
after  him  in  the  open  when  I  should  write  this  book ;  and  he, 
with  entire  good-nature,  gave  me  his  blessing  to  "go  to  it 
and  do  the  worst." 

Here  is  the  opening  letter.  The  italics  are  mine,  guided 
by  marginal  markings  of  Jack's: 

"Feb.  18/06. 
"Dear : 

' '  The  keel  is  laid.  The  boat  is  to  be  45  feet  long.  It  would 
have  been  a  little  bit  shorter  had  I  not  found  it  impossible 
to  squeeze  in  a  bathroom  otherwise.  I  sail  in  October. 
Hawaii  is  the  first  port  of  call;  and  from  there  we  shall 
wander  through  the  South  Seas,  Samoa,  Tasmania,  New 
Zealand,  Australia,  New  Guinea,  and  up  through  the  Philip 
pines  to  Japan.  Then  Korea  and  China,  and  on  down  to 
India,  Bed  Sea,  Mediterranean,  Black  Sea  and  Baltic,  and 
on  across  the  Atlantic  to  New  York,  and  then  around  the 
Horn  to  San  Francisco.  ...  I  shall  certainly  put  in  a  win 
ter  in  St.  Petersburg,  and  the  chances  are  that  I  shall  go  up 
the  Danube  from  the  Black  Sea  to  Vienna,  and  there  isn't 
a  European  country  in  which  I  shall  not  spend  from  one  to 
several  months.  This  leisurely  fashion  will  obtain  through 
out  the  whole  trip.  I  shall  not  be  in  a  rush ;  in  fact,  I  calcu 
late  seven  (7)  years  at  least  will  be  taken  up  by  the  trip. 

1  '  This  boat  is  to  be  sailed  by  one  friend  and  myself.  There 


SNAEK  VOYAGE  147 

are  no  sailors.  My  wife  accompanies  me.  Of  course,  I'll 
take  a  cook  along,  and  a  cabin  boy ;  but  these  will  be  Asiatics, 
and  will  have  no  part  in  the  sailorizing.  [The  ultimate  per 
sonnel  of  the  crew  was  rearranged.]  The  rig  of  the  boat 
will  be  a  compromise  between  a  yawl  and  a  schooner.  It 
will  be  what  is  called  the  ketch-rig — the  same  rig  that  is  used 
by  the  English  fishing-boats  on  the  Dogger  Bank. 

' 'Shall,  however,  have  a  small  engine  on  board  to  be  used 
only  in  case  of  emergency,  such  as  in  bad  water  among  reefs 
and  shoals,  where  a  sudden  calm  in  a  fast  current  leaves  a 
sailing-boat  helpless.  Also,  this  engine  is  to  be  used  for  an 
other  purpose.  When  I  strike  a  country,  say  Egypt  or 
France,  I'll  go  up  the  Nile  or  the  Seine  by  having  the  mast 
taken  out,  and  under  power  of  the  engine.  I  shall  do  this  a 
great  deal  in  the  different  countries,  travel  inland  and  live 
on  board  the  boat  at  the  same  time.  There  is  no  reason  at 
all  why  I  shouldn't  in  this  fashion  come  up  to  Paris,  and 
moor  alongside  the  Latin  Quarter,  with  a  bow-line  out  to 
Notre  Dame  and  a  stern-line  fast  to  the  Morgue. 

' 'Now  to  business.  I  shall  be  gone  a  long  time  on  this 
trip.  No  magazine  can  print  all  I  have  to  write  about  it. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  cannot  be  imagined  that  I  shall  write 
50,000  words  on  the  whole  seven  years,  and  then  quit.  As  it 
is,  the  subject  matter  of  the  trip  divides  itself  up  so  that 
there  will  be  no  clash  whatever  between  any  several  publi 
cations  that  may  be  handling  my  stuff.  For  instance,  here 
are  three  big  natural,  unconflicting  divisions:  news,  indus 
trial,  and  political  articles  on  the  various  countries  for 
newspapers;  fiction;  and  finally,  the  trip  itself. 

"Now  the  question  arises,  if  you  take  the  trip  itself 

(which  will  be  the  cream),  how  much  space  will  The 

be  able  to  give  me!  In  this  connection  I  may  state  that 
McClure's  and  Outing  are  after  me;  and,  as  I  am  throwing 
my  life,  seven  years  of  my  time,  my  earning-power  as  a 
writer  of  fiction,  and  a  lot  of  money,  into  the  enterprise,  it 
behooves  me  to  keep  a  sharp  lookout  on  how  expenses,  etc., 


148      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

are  to  be  met.  And  one  important  factor  in  this  connection 
that  I  must  consider,  is  that  of  space. 

"And  while  I  am  on  this  matter  of  space,  I  may  as  well 
say  that  it  is  granted,  always,  that  I  deliver  the  goods.  Of 
course,  if  my  articles  turn  out  to  be  mushy  and  inane, 
why  I  should  not  expect  any  magazine  to  continue  publish 
ing  them.  I  believe  too  much  in  fair  play  to  be  a  good  busi 
ness  man,  and  if  my  work  be  rotten,  I'd  be  the  last  fellow  in 
the  world  to  bind  any  editor  to  publish  it.  On  the  other 
hand,  I  have  a  tremendous  confidence,  based  upon  all  kinds 
of  work  I  have  already  done,  that  I  can  deliver  the  goods. 
Anybody  doubting  this  has  but  to  read  "The  People  of  the 
Abyss"  to  find  the  graphic,  reportorial  way  I  have  of 
handling  things.  .  .  . 

"While  on  this  matter  of  space,  I  may  also  state  that  it 
is  not  so  much  the  point  of  how  large  the  space  is  in  a  given 
number  of  magazine,  but  how  long  a  time  the  story  of  the 
trip  can  run  in  the  magazine. ' ' 

Here  he  inserts  a  paragraph  concerning  his  abilities  to 
furnish  good  photographic  illustrations.  And  he  goes  on: 

"...  We  expect  lots  of  action,  and  my  strong  point  as 
a  writer  is  that  I  am  a  writer  of  action — see  all  my  short 
stories,  for  instance.  Another  point  is,  that  while  I  am  a 
writer,  I  am  also  a  sailor  .  .  . ;  and  a  still  further  point  is, 
that  I  am  an  acknowledged  and  successful  writer  of  sea- 
matter;  see  'The  Sea  Wolf,'  'The  Cruise  of  the  Dazzler,' 
and 'Stories  of  the  Fish  Patrol.  .  .  .' 

"...  Now  comes  the  item  of  pay.  In  the  first  place, 
here  is  a  traveler-correspondent,  and  traveler-correspond 
ents  are  usually  expensive,  because  their  traveling  expenses 
are  paid  by  their  employers.  But  in  my  case  I'd  pay  my  own 
traveling  expenses.  I  build  my  boat,  I  outfit  my  boat,  and 
I  run  my  boat.  .  .  .  So,  in  whatever  conclusion  we  arrive  at, 
it  must  be  stipulated  that  I  receive  in  advance,  in  the  course 
of  the  building  of  the  boat,  say  $3000.00." 

The  editor  stated  his  willingness  to  make  the  advance; 


SNAEK  VOYAGE  149 

and  Jack  shot  back,  "All  right.  We  sail  October  1,"  end 
ing  the  letter,  "I'm  going  to  turn  out  some  cracker  jack 
stuff  on  this  trip ! ' ' 

April  3,  1906,  is  the  date  of  Jack's  agreement  to  "furn 
ish  The Magazine  a  series  of  exclusive  articles  de 
scriptive  of  my  voyage  in  my  sailboat,  which  voyage  is  to 
extend,  if  possible,  around  the  world."  The  number  of 
contributions,  he  stipulated,  was  not  to  exceed  ten  unless 
more  were  ordered.  Jack  agreed  to  supply  photographs. 

Meanwhile,  he  had  got  under  way  a  proposal  to  furnish 
land-articles,  say  upon  domestic  customs  of  native  peoples, 
for  a  woman's  magazine  in  the  east — this  in  line  with  re 
marks  which  I  have  underscored  in  letter  above  quoted. 

Came  the  Earthquake,  and  on  May  16,  he  wrote :  "You 
ask  for  my  picture  alongside  the  hull.  There  ain't  no  hull. 
The  iron  keel,  wooden  keel,  and  stem  and  a  few  ribs,  are 
standing,  and  so  they  have  been  standing  for  some  time.  I 
have  not  been  near  the  boat  yet,  and  do  not  expect  to  go  until 
it  is  practically  finished.  I  am  too  busy."  When  the  build 
ing  had  been  resumed,  Jack  put  my  uncle,  who  had  been  for 
himself  an  enthusiastic  boat-builder  in  his  time,  and  was  to 
be  sailing-master,  upon  a  salary  to  superintend  the  con 
struction. 

In  July  I  find  this  from  Jack  to  the  first  magazine : 

"You  will  have  to  defer  my  opening  article  until  the 
November  number.  I  have  finally  succumbed  to  the  Cali 
fornia  earthquake.  I  find  it  impossible  to  get  a  decent  en 
gine  this  side  of  New  York,  and  the  consequent  delay  throws 
me  back  a  full  month.  I  shall  sail  November  1,  instead  of 
October  1."  Later  he  wrote:  "This  damned  earthquake 
is  just  beginning  to  show  up  the  delays  it  caused.  There 
is  scarcely  a  thing  we  want  that  we  can  buy  in  the  local 
market."  Then,  "We  are  going  to  call  her  the  Snark," 
he  announced  his  final  choice  of  a  name  for  the  "beautiful 
elliptical  stern."  His  reason  was  that  he  could  think  of  no 
other  name  that  suited,  and  his  friends,  with  bright  sug- 


150  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

gestions  of  "The  Call  of  the  Wild,"  "The  Sea  Wolf"  and 
eke  "The  Game,"  had  worn  him  out.  He  even  put  it  as  a 
threat  to  one  and  all,  that  if  nothing  less  silly  were  forthcom 
ing,  Snark  she  should  be — this  snappy  title  being  chosen 
from  Lewis  Carroll's  "The  Hunting  of  the  Snark." 

"I  never  thought  about  naming  the  boat  after  your 
magazine,"  he  replied  to  the  editor's  suggestion.  "The 
only  objection  to  that  name  is,  that  boats,  like  horses  and 
dogs,  should  have  names  of  one  syllable.  Good,  sharp, 
strong  names,  that  can  never  be  misheard.  There's  only 
one  thing  that  would  make  me  change  the  name  Snark  to 
that  of  your  magazine,  namely,  the  presentation  of  the 
Snark  to  me  as  an  out-and-out  present.  She  is  costing  me 
$10,000,  and  by  golly,  it  would  be  worth  $10,000  worth  of  ad 
vertising  to  the  magazine.  In  return  for  such  a  present," 
(and  I  can  hear  Jack's  titter  as  he  dictated  the  outrage 
to  me),  "not  only  would  I  put  up  with  the  five-syllable 
name,  but  l Magazine'  to  be  appended.  That  would  make 
eight  syllables.  Why,  I'd  even  take  subscriptions  and 
advertisements  for  the  magazine  as  I  went  along!" 

In  September  the  editor  was  succeeded  by  another,  and 
I  find  an  amusing  item  in  his  first  letter  to  Jack:  "The 
correction  you  ask  to  be  made  has  been  attended  to  and  you 
may  rest  easy  in  the  assurance  that  'Eoscoe'  will  not  be 
misrepresented  but  will  be  placed  in  his  true  light  as  a 
1  follower  of  the  science,  though  not  the  religion,  of  one 
Cyrus  R.  Teed.'  "  For  our  sailing-master,  be  it  known, 
firmly  believed  in  the  Teed  ' '  cellular  cosmogany, ' '  and  that 
he  was  to  experience  the  Snark  voyage  on  the  inner  skin  of 
the  planet. 

Glancing  over  these  letters,  I  discover  that  Jack  had 
raised  his  fiction  rate  to  fifteen  cents  a  word  to  the  maga 
zines,  and  his  story,  "Just  Meat,"  (book  published  in 
"When  God  Laughs"),  was  being  discussed  on  this  basis. 

There  fell  more  trouble.  The  editors  of  the  two  maga 
zines  each  tried  to  "grab  the  whole  show"  in  their  advance 


SNAEK  VOYAGE  151 

advertising  of  their  totally  different  Snark  material,  and 
Jack,  indignant  with  both  for  accusing  him  of  bad  faith, 
entirely  clear  in  his  own  head  and  in  his  two  uncon- 
flicting  contracts,  was  made  the  sufferer.  His  retaliation  is 
in  plain  and  uncompromising  terms.  After  treating  the 
first  editor  to  a  few  of  his  opinions  of  magazine  offices,  he 
quotes  verbatim  from  his  contract  with  the  woman's  maga 
zine:  "  These  articles  are  to  be  upon  home  life  and  social 
conditions  in  a  broad  sense  of  the  term,  etc.,  etc." 

' '  Speaking  now  in  connection  with  contents  of  foregoing 
paragraph, "  he  enlarges,  "I  want  to  know  what  in  hell  you 
think  35,000  words  will  cover !  Do  you  think  35,000  words 
will  cover  a  tithe  of  the  boat-trip  itself,  much  less  all  the 
things  I  expect  to  do  and  see  in  the  course  of  seven  years ! 
.  .  .  Don't  you  think  I've  got  a  kick  coming  for  the  way 
you  have  advertised  me  as  going  around  the  world  for  The 

1  .  .  .  hell,  everybody  thinks  you  are  building  my 

boat  for  me,  and  paying  all  my  expenses,  and  giving  me  a 
princely  salary  on  top  of  it  ...  35,000  words  at  10  cents  a 
word  means  $3500.00  and  the  initial  cost  of  my  boat  is  run 
ning  past  the  $12,000.00  mark,  to  say  nothing  of  expenses 
of  running  said  boat.  .  .  .  Those  are  the  figures  up  to  date, 
and  they're  still  going  up.  San  Francisco  is  mad.  Prices 
have  climbed  out  of  sight.  I  pay  $200  for  a  bit  of  iron  work 
on  the  boat,  that  should  cost  $40.00.  Everything  is  in  this 
order.  The  outlook  is  now,  that  I  shall  not  sail  before 
January.  Weeks  go  by  without  a  tap  of  work  being  done  on 
the  boat.  Can't  get  the  men.  All  my  stuff  is  coming  from 
the  east  because  the  earthquake  destroyed  the  local  market ; 
and  freight  is  congested." 

On  November  1,  1906,  Jack  wrote  again:  "Yes,  Mr. 

[the  new  editor's  predecessor]  did  write  me  upon 

the  matter  of  '  distributing  my  cabbages  in  several  baskets, ' 
and  I  must  confess  that  he  got  me  rather  hot  in  the  collar, 
what  of  the  sized-basket  he  had  furnished  me  and  thought 
would  hold  all  my  cabbages — the  crop  of  seven  years  in  a 


152  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

35,000-word  basket !  I  am  inclosing  you  a  copy  of  the  letter 
I  sent  him.  .  .  .  Since  writing  this,  I  wrote  him  another 

calling  the  turn  on  him  for  doing  just  what  Mr. [the 

editor  of  the  woman's  magazine]  had  done,  namely,  claim 
ing  everything  in  sight  so  far  as  my  seven-years '  voyage  is 
concerned.  Your  periodical  said  that  practically  my  total 
output  would  go  to  it,  concerning  lands,  people,  etc.,  that  I 
would  see.  The  mental  processes  of  editors  are  beyond  me. 

I  fought  with  Mr.  for  35,000  words,  and  couldn't 

get  it  out  of  him. ' ' 

When  the  Christmas  number  of  the  magazine  that  was  to 
have  the  story  of  the  voyage  came  out,  containing  the  first 
of  his  boat-articles,  Jack  let  loose  his  "long  wolf-howl" 
upon  the  liberties  that  had  been  taken  with  his  copy.  "  Any 
tyro  can  cut  a  manuscript,"  he  storms,  "and  feel  that  he  is  a 
co-creator  with  the  author.  But  it's  hell  on  the  author. 
Not  one  man  in  a  million,  including  office-boys,  is  to  be 
found  in  the  magazine  office  who  is  able  properly  to  revise 
by  elimination  the  work  of  a  professional  author.  And  the 
men  in  your  office  have  certainly  played  ducks  and  drakes 
with  the  exposition  in  the  first  half  of  my  first  boat-article. 
.  .  .  For  instance,  I  have  just  finished  the  proofs  of  'Just 
Meat. '  In  one  place  I  have  my  burglar  say,  'I  put  the  kibosh 
on  his  time.'  Some  man  in  your  office  changed  this  to,  'I 
put  a  crimp  in  his  time.'  In  the  first  place,  ' crimp'  is  in 
correct  in  such  usage.  In  the  second  place,  there  is  nothing 
whatever  in  the  connotation  of  'kibosh'  that  would  prevent 
its  appearing  in  the  pages  of  your  magazine.  'Kibosh'  is 
not  vulgar,  it  is  not  obscene.  Such  action  is  wholly  unwar 
ranted  and  gratitously  officious.  Did  this  co-creator  of  mine, 
in  your  office,  think  that  he  knew  what  he  was  doing  when 
he  made  such  a  ridiculous  substitution?  And  if  he  does 
think  so,  why  in  the  dickens  doesn't  he  get  in  and  do  the 
whole  thing  himself? 

"In  our  contract,"  he  grows  hot  and  hotter,  "I  take 
your  right  of  revision  to  consist  in  rejecting  an  article  as 


SNABK  VOYAGE  153 

a  whole  or  in  eliminating  objectionable  phrases.  Now  I 
have  no  objection  to  that.  I  have  no  objection  to  your  truck 
ling  to  Mrs.  Grundy,  when,  for  instance,  you  cut  out  swear 
words  or  change  'go  to  hell'  to  'go  to  blazes. '  That's  the 
mere  shell.  In  that  sort  of  revision  you  can  have  full 
swing;  but  that  is  different  matter  from  cutting  the  heart 
out  of  my  work,  such  as  you  did  in  my  first  boat-article. 
You  made  my  exposition  look  like  thirty  cents. 

"I  WEAVE  my  stuff;  you  can  cut  out  a  whole  piece  of 
it,  but  you  can't  cut  out  parts  of  it,  and  leave  mutilated 
parts  behind.  Just  think  of  it.  Wading  into  my  exposition 
and  cutting  out  premises  or  proofs  or  anything  else  just  to 
suit  your  length  of  an  article,  or  the  space,  rather,  that  you 
see  fit  to  give  such  article.  [The  editors  were  succeeding 
each  other  rapidly  about  this  time,  and  Jack  was  quite  in 
the  dark  as  to  whom,  personally,  he  was  addressing.]  .  .  . 
'  *  Don 't  you  see  my  point  f "  he  urges.  '  *  If  the  whole  woven 
thing — event,  narrative,  description — is  not  suitable  for 
your  magazine,  why  cut  it  out — cut  out  the  whole  thing.  I 
don't  care.  But  I  refuse  to  contemplate  for  one  moment 
that  there  is  any  man  in  your  office,  or  in  the  office  of  any 
magazine,  capable  of  bettering  my  art,  or  the  art  of  any 
other  first-class  professional  writer. 

"Now,  I  want  to  give  warning  right  here :  I  won't  stand 
for  it.  Before  I  stand  for  it,  I'll  throw  over  the  whole 
proposition.  If  you  dare  to  do  this  with  my  succeeding 
articles.  ...  I'll  not  send  you  another  line.  By  golly, 
you've  got  to  give  me  a  square  deal  in  this  matter.  Do  you 
think  for  one  moment  that  I'll  write  my  heart  (my  skilled, 
professional  heart,  if  you  please)  into  my  work  to  have 
you  fellows  slaughtering  it  to  suit  your  journalistic  tastes? 
Either  I'm  going  to  write  this  set  of  articles,  or  you're  go 
ing  to  write  it,  for  know  right  here  that  I  refuse  definitely 
and  flatly,  to  collaborate  with  you  or  with  any  one  in  your 
office. 

"In  order  that  this  letter  may  not  go  astray, "  he  winds 


154  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

up,  "I  am  sending  copies  to  each  of  the  three  men  who,  in 
my  present  hypothesis,  I  think  may  possibly  be  editor  .  .  . 
And  I  want,  at  your  earliest  convenience,  an  assurance  that 
the  sort  of  mutilation  I  am  complaining  about,  will  not  occur 
again." 

After  an  unsatisfactory  reply,  Jack  wrote:  "Frankly, 
I'd  like  to  call  the  whole  thing  off,"  following  this  with  a 
still  warmer  letter  than  his  former  one,  impressing  upon 
the  editor,  "This  is  the  first  squabble  I  ever  had  in  my 
life  with  a  magazine.  I  hope  it  will  be  my  last,  but  I'll 
make  it  hum  while  it  lasts. ' ' 

The  upshot  of  the  "squabble"  was  that  the  boat  articles 
were  actually  called  off,  another  serial,  already  under  way, 
to  be  submitted  at  a  still  better  rate.  Jack  was  well  pleased, 
and  I  was  relieved  for  his  sake,  as  the  unsettled  state  of 
matters  both  with  regard  to  his  work  and  the  exasperating 
Snark  progress  was  very  grilling  to  his  nerves. 

Another  disappointment  we  had  sustained  was  the  loss 
of  Manyoungi.  For  weeks,  with  true  oriental  indirection, 
he  had  set  about  making  himself  dispensable.  The  only 
motive,  Jack  convinced  himself,  was  that  the  boy  harbored 
a  disinclination  to  visit  the  Seven  Seas  in  an  inconsequential 
shallop  such  as  to  him  appeared  the  small  Snark  on  her 
rickety  ways  at  the  shipyard.  The  heart  of  the  sailor  was 
not  in  his  breast.  His  misbehavior,  which  had  extended  into 
every  department  of  his  service,  culminated  one  evening 
in  a  very  ludicrous  manner.  He  had  all  day  blatantly 
omitted  his  habitual  address  of  "Master,"  substituting 
"Mr.  London,"  or  "Boss,"  with  labored  variations.  His 
bold  black  eyes  and  studiedly  nonchalant  tongue  advertised 
bid  upon  bid  for  discharge.  And  still  new  titles  fell  from 
his  foolish  lips,  and  still  "Master"  looked  up  when  they  be 
came  especially  if  unintentionally  funny,  and  grinned  at  the 
silly  boy,  though  one  could  note  a  peculiar  absence  of  expres 
sion  in  Jack's  gray  eyes.  For  he  was  sad  to  lose  Manyoungi, 
and  in  such  undignified  fashion — the  perfect  servant  in  so 


SNAEK  VOYAGE  155 

many  capacities,  of  whom  we  were  both  personally  fond 
into  the  bargain. 

It  was  the  custom  each  night,  when  we  played  our  night 
cap  game  of  cards,  for  Manyoungi  to  ask  what  we  would 
have  to  drink — grape-juice,  or  ginger-ale,  lemonade,  or  beer. 
On  this  evening  I  was  bending  apprehensively  over  the  crib- 
bage-board,  watching  my  opponent  peg  a  shocking  advan 
tage,  when  an  ominously  quiet  but  impudent  voice  behind 
me  asked: 

"Will  God  have  some  beer?" 

The  only  muscles  I  moved  were  in  raising  my  eyes  to 
Jack's  face.  I  was  braced  for  anything;  words  and  tone 
were  an  invitation  to  wipe  up  the  floor  with  Manyoungi 's 
offending  countenance.  Jack  went  pale  with  surprise ;  but 
his  sense  of  humor  prevented  him  from  thrashing  the 
Korean,  as  man  to  man.  He  was  not  even  angry,  properly 
speaking,  and  I  relaxed  when,  controlling  the  desire  to  laugh, 
he  said  composedly: 

i '  I  do  not  want  anything  at  all  from  you,  Manyoungi, ' ' 
and  dealt  another  hand. 

It  meant  the  breaking  of  a  new  man  to  all  the  details  of 
our  complicated  requirements,  not  only  in  relation  to  our 
present  life,  but  to  the  prospective  one  upon  the  water. 
Tochigi,  a  poet-browed  Japanese,  later  to  become  an  or 
dained  minister  in  the  Episcopal  clergy,  came  to  fill  the 
vacancy;  and  each  day's  lunch-table  was  a  thing  of  artistic 
anticipation,  for  never  did  the  same  exquisite  floral  decora 
tion  appear  twice. 

Jack  forever  maintained  that  there  never  could  be 
equaled  Manyoungi 's  perfect  "spirit  of  service"  that  ani 
mated  his  manifold  accomplishments.  ' '  Why,  that  boy  could 
make  both  Charmian  and  me  ready  in  half  an  hour  for  Tim- 
buctoo ! "  he  would  praise.  And  it  was  not  far  from  the  fact. 

In  a  letter  to  Cloudesley  Johns,  written  in  September,  is 
a  lovely  attestation  of  Jack  London's  inner  contentment 
as  regarded  the  voyage : 


156  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

"Nay,  I'll  not  come  back  in  18  months.  Barring  boat  and 
financial  shipwreck,  shall  be  gone  for  at  least  seven  years.  Also, 
shall  not  'come  back  young  again/  I  am  long  since  'young  again.' 
You  ought  to  see  me,  and  you  ought  to  have  seen  me  all  this 
year  at  Glen  Ellen." 

Curiously  enough,  eighteen  months  was  practically  the 
extent  of  our  actual  residence  on  the  Snark,  although  we 
were  absent  twenty-seven  months  altogether. 

In  early  November,  hoping  soon  to  weigh  anchor,  we 
moved  to  Oakland,  with  Mammy  Jennie  and  Tochigi  to  keep 
house.  That  month,  Jack  wrote  Cloudesley : 

" Sorrier  than  the  devil;  but  can't  make  Los  Angeles  before  I 
sail.  And  when  I  sail,  I'm  going  to  hit  the  high  places  for  mid 
ocean  in  order  to  learn  navigation  and  learn  the  boat  where  I've 
plenty  of  room.  No  rockbound  coast  for  me  as  a  starter.  A 
thousand  miles  of  offing  isn  't  any  too  good  for  me  as  a  starter.  .  .  . 
Dec.  15th  is  sailing  date." 

The  first  week  in  December  saw  the  completion  of  ' '  The 
Iron  Heel,"  begun  in  August,  and  Jack  bent  his  efforts  upon 
the  tramp  series.  That  done,  too  restless  to  concentrate 
upon  another  long  stretch,  he  wrote  the  stories:  "Goliah" 
(in  "Revolution"),  "The  Passing  of  Marcus  O'Brien  (in 
"Lost  Face"),  "The  Unparalleled  Invasion"  (published 
in  "The  Strength  of  the  Strong,"  and  interesting  in  view 
of  the  alleged  methods  during  the  Great  War),  "The 
Enemy  of  All  the  World"  and  "The  Dream  of  Debs"  (both 
in  "The  Strength  of  the  Strong"),  and  "A  Curious  Frag 
ment"  (in  "When  God  Laughs"). 

For  recreation,  the  living-room  echoed  to  exciting  con 
tests  in  poker  or  hearts,  among  the  players  and  onlookers 
being  George  Sterling,  Henry  Lafler,  Carlton  Bierce,  Rich 
ard  Partington,  Rob  Royce,  Porter  Garnett,  Nora  May 
French,  and  the  Lily  Maid,  with  a  host  of  others.  Upon  one 
of  these  occasions,  the  first  part  of  December,  while  we 
wives  of  "the  boys"  were  entertaining  ourselves  at  my  new 
ly  acquired  Steinway  "B"  grand,  there  arrived,  from  Kan- 


SNAEK  VOYAGE  157 

sas,  in  a  drenching  southeaster,  Martin  Johnson,  who  was 
destined  to  be  the  only  unshaken  unit  in  the  Snark's  crew. 
After  partially  drying  himself,  he  sat  in  at  the  game  of 
hearts. 

There  were  Sunday  foregatherings  with  what  was  left 
of  the  old  " Crowd'-  in  Piedmont;  Kugby  at  the  Univer 
sity  of  California,  and  concerts  in  its  Greek  Theater;  plays 
and  concerts  at  the  Macdonough  Theater  or  the  Bishop 
Playhouse;  gay  dinner-parties  at  the  Oakland  Eestaurants 
— The  Forum,  The  Saddle  Rock,  and  Pabst  Cafe.  Jack  con 
sumed  many  ' '  ten-minute  "  wild  ducks,  canvasback,  mallard, 
teal,  washed  down  with  his  favorite  wine,  imported  Lieb- 
fraumilch,  in  the  tall  opaline  glasses  he  loved.  For  he,  who 
"bothered"  so  little  what  he  put  in  his  stomach,  was  devoted 
to  this  type  of  game,  excessively  rare  and  accompanied  by 
potatoes  au  gratm;  and  the  fact  that  he  had  not  missed  the 
open  season  was  somewhat  of  a  solace  for  the  almost  in 
supportable  delay  in  Snark  affairs. 

We  made  up  frequent  swimming  parties  for  the  Pied 
mont  indoor  tank;  and  once  or  twice,  roved  the  town  on 
rented  saddlers,  taking  photographs  of  all  that  were  left 
standing  of  Jack's  many  homes  that  had  been.  We  boxed 
regularly  at  the  house  on  Twenty-seventh  Street,  rather  to 
the  disapproval  of  Jack's  mother,  who  remained  silent  until 
one  day  I  drove  my  retreating  opponent,  beaten  by  his  own 
mirth  at  my  ferocity,  into  the  dining-room  door,  cracking 
the  redwood  panel.  Prizefights  took  Jack  to  the  West  Oak 
land  Athletic  Club,  as  before  mentioned;  and,  when  the 
Snark,  after  once  breaking  the  inadequate  ways,  had  been 
finally  launched  in  San  Francisco  and  brought  to  East  Oak 
land  for  completion,  there  were  steamed-mussel  dinners 
aboard  in  the  unfinished  cabin. 

I  learned  to  ride  a  wheel,  good  horses  being  unob 
tainable,  and  also  that  I  might  participate  with  Jack  in 
another  of  his  old  hobbies;  so  he  bought  me  a  "bike,"  and 
was  loud  in  his  boast  that  with  three  hours '  practice  I  was 


158  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

able,  without  mishap,  to  ride  clear  to  East  Oakland  to  in 
spect  progress  on  the  yacht. 

We  took  our  work  to  Carmel-by-the-sea,  and  visited  the 
Sterlings  for  a  fortnight;  and  a  journey  in  mid-winter  was 
made  into  Nevada,  to  Tonopah  and  Goldfield — in  which 
latter  mining-town  we  were  guests  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Janu 
ary  Jones,  who  showed  us  everything  our  time  permitted, 
above  the  ground,  and  many  hundreds  of  feet  beneath  the 
surface,  by  means  of  the  precarious  rim  of  an  iron  bucket. 
We  returned  to  California  by  way  of  Rhyolite  and  Bullfrog, 
booming  gold-centers,  and  had  a  never-to-be-forgotten 
glimpse  into  Death  Valley;  then  Los  Angeles,  and  home 
again.  This  trip  was  succeeded  by  one  to  Stanford  Uni 
versity,  where  Jack  lectured  upon  Socialism.  We  were  met 
by  three  "  clean,  noble,  and  alive  "  students,  Ferguson,  Tut- 
tle  and  Wentz.  Jack  was  entertained  by  the  Delta  Upsilon 
Fraternity;  and  I  by  the  Alpha  Phi  Sorority. 

There  was  a  Euskin  Club  dinner  on  February  1,  which 
Jack  addressed  upon  the  subject  of  "Incentive."  Like  a 
red  scarf  to  a  bull  was  to  Jack  the  stock  argument  so  often 
advanced,  that  without  material  gain  there  would  be  no 
incentive  to  good  deeds.  His  speech,  which  I  have  in  man 
uscript,  is  too  long  to  quote  entire;  but  the  opening  chal 
lenges  are  enough  to  indicate  what  follows: 

"Does  a  child  compete  in  a  spelling  match  for  material 
gain? 

"Do  the  boys  wrestling  or  racing  in  the  schoolyard 
compete  for  material  gain? 

' '  Do  sailors  at  sea  volunteer  to  launch  a  boat  in  a  moun 
tainous  sea  to  rescue  shipwrecked  strangers  for  material 
gain? 

"Did  Lincoln  toil  with  his  statecraft  for  material  gain? 

"Are  you  here  to-night  for  material  gain? 

"Do  the  professors  in  all  the  universities  toil  for  mate 
rial  gain? — you  know  their  average  salary  is  less  than  that 
of  skilled  laborers. 


SNARK  VOYAGE  159 

"Do  the  scientists  in  their  laboratories  work  for  mate 
rial  gain? 

* '  Did  men  like  Spencer,  Darwin,  Newton,  work  for  mate 
rial  gain? 

"Did  the  half  million  soldiers  in  the  Civil  War  endure 
hardships,  mangling,  and  violent  death  for  the  material  gain 
of  thirteen  dollars  per  month? 

"And  is  there  any  incentive  of  material  gain  in  the  love 
of  mothers  for  their  children  in  all  the  world? — and  re 
member  that  the  mothers  constitute  half  of  all  the  world. 

1  'In  short,  have  I  not  mentioned  incentives,  that  are  not 
alone  higher  than  the  incentive  of  material  gain,  but  that 
dominate  the  incentive  of  material  gain — and  that  also  com 
pel  to  action  multitudes  of  people,  in  fact,  all  the  people 
of  the  world? 

*  *  Can  you  not  conceive  that  mere  material  gain,  a  once 
,  useful  device  for  the  development  of  the  human,  has  not  ful 
filled  its  function  and  is  ready  to  be  cast  aside  into  the  scrap- 
heap  of  rudimentary  organs  and  ideas,  such  as  gills  in  the 
throat  and  belief  in  the  divine  right  of  kings?" 

These  latter  months  of  waiting,  Jack  was  up  and  down 
in  his  temperament,  and  more  or  less  continually  depressed. 
So  much  so,  at  intervals,  that  for  once  it  was  I  who  said 
to  myself:  "Thank  heaven  I  don't  have  to  live  in  a  city 
always!"  Even  Oakland,  suburb  of  the  greater  town 
across  the  Bay,  had  a  bad  effect  upon  him.  But  at  last  the 
trial-trip  of  the  Snark  was  heralded  for  February  10,  and 
upon  the  breathing  swell,  ten  miles  out  to  sea,  the  saucy,  if 
grimy,  little  hull  bore  under  sail  and  gasolene.  Our  spirits 
soared ;  and  Jack,  where  we  sat  together  in  the  bows  for  an 
hour,  said  to  me : 

"And  we're  going  around  the  world  together  in  her,  you 
and  I,  Mate  Woman.  ..." 

He  presented  me  with  "The  Cruise  of  the  Dazzler,"  and 
in  it  wrote:  "And  soon  we  sail  on  our  own  cruise.  'The 


160  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

Cruise  of  the  Snark' — and  we  shall  be  mates  around  the 
whole  round  world. " 

So  loved  we  our  adventure,  that  of  mornings  we  often  ex 
changed  overnight  dreams  of  boat  and  voyage.  Then,  un 
able,  on  account  of  further  ' '  inconceivable  and  monstrous " 
excuses,  to  get  away  until  April,  once  we  went  home  to  Glen 
Ellen.  Snow  was  on  the  mountain,  and  we  rode  to  the  top, 
Selim  and  Belle,  pasture-fat,  sniffing  suspiciously  at  the 
white  earth.  And  we  heard,  to  our  lasting  sorrow,  how 
Brown  Wolf,  whose  prophetic  eyes  and  ways  had  wrung  our 
hearts  while  preparations  were  afoot  for  the  Long  Separa 
tion,  had  died,  alone  and  in  the  snow  of  his  birthing,  a  week 
after  we  had  left  in  November.  No  one  had  plucked  up  the 
courage  to  tell  us.  " After  that  first  snow  had  all  melted," 
Wiget  said, 1 1  one  day  I  saw  something  up  the  hill  among  the 
trees  above  my  house ;  and  when  I  went  up,  there  was  your 
dog,  dead  among  the  leaves,  with  snow  still  on  his  fur." 

Dear  Brown  Wolf !  It  seemed  hard  indeed  that  he  should 
have  had  his  bleak  heart  wrenched  so  cruelly  twice  in  his  old 
age.  Eeminiscences  were  often  upon  Jack's  lips :  "Do  you 
remember,  Mate,"  he  would  say,  "the  day  we  started  out 
for  the  afternoon  on  Belle  and  poor  Ban,  and  Brown  Wolf 
picked  up  a  big  juicy  porterhouse  some  one  had  dropped, 
and  nearly  died  because  he  couldn't  decide  between  the  beef 
steak  and  the  run  with  us?  The  red  meat  won  out — he 
knew  we  would  come  back.  But  nothing  could  change  his 
foreboding  when  we  got  ready  for  the  Snark.  .  .  .  Funny 
about  dogs :  sometimes,  as  in  his  case,  even  before  the  travel 
ing-gear  is  brought  out  they  seem  to  sense  what  is  coming 
to  them." 

The  dismantled  Jack's  House  and  Annex  did  not  affect 
us  cheerfully ;  and  after  a  last  ride  to  the  Ranch,  to  see  the 
completed  stone  and  tile  barn  by  moonlight,  we  bade  final 
farewell  to  Wake  Eobin. 

On  the  last  night  of  the  year,  after  wild  funning  with  a 
chance  party  of  acquaintances  in  the  uproarious  cafes  and 


1908.      JACK     AND     CHAKMIAN      LONDON      IN      SOLOMON 
ISLANDS 


SNARK  VOYAGE  161 

confetti-showered  streets  of  Oakland,  which  had  gained 
enormously  in  population  after  the  great  fire  across  the 
water,  I  closed  my  1906  diary  with  these  words : 

"And  so  ends  the  happiest  year  of  my  life,  with  before 
us  a  great  adventure  " 


CHAPTER  XXXI 

THE  "SNARK"  VOYAGE;  TRAMP  COLLIER  "TYMERIC"  VOYAGE; 
ECUADOR;  PANAMA;  HOME 

1907-8-9 

OUR  friends  cannot  understand  why  we  make  this  voy 
age/'  Jack  elucidates  his  and  my  "I  like,"  which,  he 
always  contended,  is  the  ultimate,  obvious  reason  for  all 
human  decision.  "They  shudder,  and  moan,  and  raise 
their  hands,'7  somewhat,  he  might  have  added,  as  did  the 
Lily  Maid's  mother  upon  his  departure  for  Alaska.  "No 
amount  of  explanation  can  make  them  comprehend  that  we 
are  moving  along  the  line  of  least  resistance;  that  it  is 
easier  for  us  to  go  down  to  the  sea  in  a  small  ship  than  to 
remain  on  dry  land,  just  as  it  is  easier  for  them  to  remain 
on  dry  land  than  to  go  down  to  the  sea  in  the  small  ship.  .  .  . 
They  cannot  come  out  of  themselves  long  enough  to  see  that 
their  line  of  least  resistance  is  not  necessarily  everybody 
else 's  line  of  least  resistance.  .  .  .  They  think  I  am  crazy. 
In  return,  I  am  sympathetic.  .  .  .  The  things  I  like  con 
stitute  my  set  of  values.  The  thing  I  like  most  of  all  is  per 
sonal  achievement — not  achievement  for  the  world's  ap 
plause,  but  achievement  for  my  own  delight.  It  is  the  old 
4 1  did  it!  I  did  it!  With  my  own  hands  I  did  it !'  But  per 
sonal  achievement,  with  me,  must  be  concrete.  I'd  rather 
win  a  water-fight  in  the  swimming-pool,  or  remain  astride  a 
horse  that  is  trying  to  get  out  from  under  me,  than  write 
the  great  American  novel  .  .  .  Some  other  fellow  would 
prefer  writing  the  great  American  novel  .  .  .  That  is  why 
I  am  building  the  Snark  ...  I  am  so  made.  I  like  it,  that 
is  all.  The  trip  around  the  world  means  big  moments  of 

162 


ECUADOR;  PANAMA;  HOME       163 

living  .  .  .  Here  is  the  sea,  the  wind,  and  the  wave.  Here 
are  the  seas,  the  winds,  and  the  waves  of  all  the  world  .  .  . 
Here  is  difficult  adjustment,  the  achievement  of  which  is 
delight  to  the  small  quivering  vanity  that  is  I  ...  It  is  my 
own  particular  form  of  vanity,  that  it  all. ' ' 

"The  ultimate  word,"  he  says  elsewhere,  "is  I  LIKE. 
It  lies  beneath  philosophy  and  is  twined  about  the  heart  of 
life.  When  philosophy  has  maundered  ponderously  for  a 
month,  telling  the  individual  what  he  must  do,  the  individual 
says  in  an  instant  I  LIKE — and  does  something  else  and 
philosophy  goes  glimmering.  Philosophy  is  very  often  a 
man's  way  of  explaining  his  own  I  LIKE." 

To  resume:    "There  is  also  another  side  to  the  voyage 
of  the  Snark.    Being  alive,  I  want  to  see,  and  all  the  world 
is  a  bigger  thing  to  see  than  one  small  town  or  valley." 
At  the  end  of  the  voyage,  he  wrote : 

"The  voyage  was  our  idea  of  a  good  time.  I  built  the  Snark 
and  paid  for  it,  and  for  all  expenses.  I  contracted  to  write  35,000 
words  descriptive  of  the  trip  for  a  magazine  which  was  to  pay 
me  the  same  rate  I  received  for  stories  written  at  home.  Promptly 
the  magazine  advertised  that  it  was  sending  me  especially  around 
the  world  for  itself.  It  was  a  wealthy  magazine.  And  every  man 
who  had  business  dealings  with  the  Snark  charged  three  prices 
because  forsooth  the  magazine  could  afford  it.  Down  in  the  utter 
most  South  Sea  isle  this  myth  obtained,  and  I  paid  accordingly. 
To  this  day  everybody  believes  that  the  magazine  paid  for  every 
thing  and  that  I  made  a  fortune  out  of  the  voyage.  It  is  hard,  after 
such  advertising,  to  hammer  it  into  the  human  understanding  that 
the  whole  voyage  was  done  for  the  fun  of  it. ' ' 

The  Snark  exploit,  so  far  as  it  lasted,  was  all  and  more 
to  Jack  London  and  to  me  than  we  had  anticipated.  Some 
feminine  journalist,  after  reading  my  "Log,"  described  the 
cruise  as  "a  disappointment — nothing  but  a  disappoint 
ment.  ' '  It  would  have  been — to  her,  who  did  not  care  to  go 
down  to  the  sea  in  ships,  or  having  gone  down  to  the  sea  in 
ships,  dwelt  only  upon  the  little  annoyances  that  enter  sea- 


164  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

living  as  well  as  land-living.  But  I,  with  a  firm  philosophy 
that  it  is  the  Big  Things  which  count,  and  with  the  memory 
of  my  Strong  Traveler  beside  me,  ask  that  no  one  shall  en 
tertain  the  opinion  that  it  was  not  the  most  wonderful,  vic 
torious  thing  which  ever  happened  to  the  right  man  and  wo 
man.  What  we  set  out  to  attain — the  "  purple  passages, " 
the  glamor  of  Romance,  the  sheer  emancipation  from  any 
possible  boredom  or  commonplaceness  of  memory  forever 
and  forever,  and,  before  everything,  increased  love  and 
camaraderie  between  us  two — became  ours  in  unstinted 
measure. 

One  reporter,  previously  to  our  sailing,  said:  "When 
Jack  London  talks  of  his  purposed  voyage,  he  is  all  boy,  all 
enthusiasm."  So  he  appeared.  But  I,  accustomed  to 
look  beneath  the  surface  phenomena  of  him,  realized 
throughout  my  life  at  his  side  that  no  matter  how  sincere 
his  enthusiasms,  the  keen  edge  had  been  rubbed  from  ad 
venture  by  pre-adventure,  if  I  may  coin  a  word — the  super- 
adventure  of  a  too-early  manhood.  So,  in  his  successful 
maturity,  when  he  came  to  undertake,  with  all  the  zest  in 
him,  the  conquest  of  dreams  he  had  failed  to  capture  in 
youth — like  say  exploring  Typee  Valley,  or  letting  go  anchor 
in  uncharted  bights  of  cannibal  isles — it  was  with  a  differ 
ence  which  a  less  experienced,  less  thoughtful  man  would  not 
have  known. 

Yet  his  ardors  were  many,  once  we  were  under  way  on 
the  "Long  Trail."  Hawaii,  that  in  later  years  he  came  to 
call  his  Love-Land,  warmed  his  veins  to  the  very  delicious- 
ness  of  our  venture — the  keenest  zest  of  which  was  that  we 
were  seeing  the  world  together.  In  the  midst  of  his  morn 
ing's  thousand  words,  he  would  break  off  to  remind  me  of 
the  beauty  and  adventure  we  should  find  below  the  equator ; 
and  then,  realizing  that  a  half -hour  had  been  lost  from  his 
busy  time,  he  would  pick  up  his  charmed  ink-pencil : 

' '  There — don 't  talk  to  me  any  more,  woman !  How  am  I 
going  to  get  my  thousand  words  done,  to  pay  for  those  pearls 


ECUADOR;  PANAMA;  HOME       165 

we're  going  to  buy  in  the  Paumotus  and  Torres  Straits,  and 
all  that  turtle  shell  from  Melanesia,  if  you  keep  me  from 
work  now!" — Poor  me,  speechless,  with  clasped  hands  of 
transport  in  his  own  rapturous  imaginings.  But,  since  the 
youngling  philosopher,  who  always  dreamed  with  his  two 
feet  upon  solid  earth,  seldom  failed  to  bring  his  intentions 
to  pass,  safely  enough  I  thought  to  count  upon  the  gleaming 
sea-seeds  and  polished  turtle-scales,  the  adventuring  for 
which  was  to  be  seven-eighths  of  the  prize.  Again,  look 
ing  up  with  visions  in  his  deep  eyes : 

"  Think,  think  where  we  are  bound — the  very  names 
stir  all  the  younger  red  corpuscles  in  one! — Bankok, 
Celebes,  Madagascar,  Java,  Sumatra,  Natal — oh,  I'll  take 
you  to  them  all ;  and  your  lap  shall  be  filled  with  pearls,  my 
dear,  and  we  shall  have  them  set  in  fretted  gold  by  the  smiths 
.of  the  Orient." 

As  a  sailor,  I  could  not  but  feel  that  he  was  a  consum 
mate  artist.  As  that  matchless  sea-writer,  Joseph  Conrad, 
reminds  us,  "an  artist  is  a  man  of  action,  whether  he 
creates  a  personality,  invents  an  expedient,  or  finds  the 
issue  of  a  complicated  situation. ' '  And  Jack  London 's  was 
a  facility  of  adjustment,  a  quickness  of  conception  and  exe 
cution,  "upon  the  basis, "  again  to  quote  Conrad,  "of  just 
appreciation  of  means  and  ends  which  is  the  highest  quality 
of  the  man  of  action. ' ' 

All  a  piece  of  wonder  it  was,  on  and  round  about  the 
narrow  precipitous  deck  of  the  Snark,  herself  a  mere  scud 
ding  fleck  of  matter  advancing  upon  the  vast  undulating 
plane  of  the  Pacific.  How  could  a  true  sailor  be  bored,  the 
longest  day  under  the  arching  blue  sky — the  excellent  trades 
hunting  his  ship  to  its  purple  havens?  For  Jack  found  me 
sailor,  too,  albeit  a  lamentably  untechnical  mariner — ever 
he  stood  aghast  at  the  hopelessness  of  getting  me  to  present, 
1 1  so  that  the  Man  from  Mars  could  understand, ' '  certain  or 
dinary,  primary  principles  of  seamanship.  But  my  love  and 
true  feel  for  the  very  shape  of  a  boat,  and  for  her  perform- 


166      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

ance,  and  for  the  whole  world  of  water,  easily  he  saw  were 
not  to  be  questioned ;  while  always,  in  entering  and  leaving 
the  most  dangerous  passages,  he  sent  me  to  the  wheel  to 
cooperate  with  his  piloting.  "It's  this  way:"  he  had  it. 
"There  are  many  boats,  but  only  one  woman;  boats  will 
come  and  go,  and  captains  will  come  and  go,  but  Charmian 
will  be  with  me  always,  at  the  helm." 

Here  I  am  tempted  to  digress,  in  order  to  word  a  still  but 
not  small  worry  that  was  mine  during  our  married  life. 
Jack's  correlations  between  brain  and  body  were  exception 
ally  balanced.  But  there  showed  in  him  one  inexactitude  that 
led  me  to  nurse  a  dread  that  my  own  hand,  under  his  com 
mand,  might  some  most  inopportune  time  wreck  a  boat. 
I  do  not  know  when  I  first  began  to  notice  that  at  intervals 
he  would  say  "right"  for  "left,"  but  sometimes  I  would 
promptly  call  his  attention  to  the  mistake  while  his  voice 
was  still  in  the  air.  My  principal  fear  was  that,  some  irre 
trievable  consequence  having  occurred,  the  responsibility 
might  not  be  easy  to  place;  and  I  prided  myself  upon  un 
questioning  obedience  aboard  ship.  Jack  liked  that,  and 
only  once  did  we  personally  come  to  grief.  It  was  upon  a 
midnight  in  the  Solomon  Islands,  dark  as  a  hat,  and  Jack, 
sick  and  apprehensive,  was  trying  to  make  out  a  certain 
plantation  anchorage  on  Guadalcanal.  Suddenly,  though 
the  shore  signal  lights  were  identical,  he  discovered  that  we 
were  almost  on  the  rocks.  It  eventuated  that  another  plan 
tation  than  the  one  we  sought  had  irresponsibly  copied  the 
other's  lights.  I  started  to  put  the  wheel  hard  down  at 
Jack 's  swift,  tense  command.  i '  Hard  down !  Hard  down ! 
quick!"  he  repeated.  Then  I,  like  an  idiot,  "Oh,  I  am! 
I  am!"  It  was  too  much  for  the  disciplined  sailorman. 
Not  of  babbling  courtesies  nor  babies  nor  women  was 
he  thinking,  but  of  saving  the  vessel  that  insured  the  safe 
ty  of  all  the  souls  on  board.  And  I  let  my  own  silly, 
mawkish,  fever-warped  nerves  go  up  against  this  intellect 
ually-cool,  efficient  manipulating  of  a  real  issue.  Since 


ECUADOE;  PANAMA;  HOME       167 

Jack  never  apologized  for  his  sharp  reproof,  "Obey  orders 
and  don 't  talk  back ! "  I  truly  believe  that  no  realization  of 
his  harshness  entered  the  mind  so  bent  upon  a  life-and- 
death  problem. 

No,  we  did  not  know  the  meaning  of  boredom.  And 
" Aren't  you  glad  I'm  your  husband?"  Jack  would  laugh 
over  my  enthusiasms.  Or,  tenderly,  "You  would  marry  a 
sailor!"  when  I  floundered  into  the  head-splitting  fever 
attacks.  But  dearest  of  all  was  his  assurance,  reiterated  in 
illness  and  discouragement:  "You  do  not  know  what  you 
mean  to  me.  It  is  like  being  lost  in  the  Dangerous  Archi 
pelago,  and  coming  into  safe  harbor  at  last." 

It  is  all  a  piece  of  wonder,  the  sea,  to  such  as  we :  still 
magic  of  calms,  where  one 's  boat  lies  with  motionless  grace 
upon  a  shadow-flecked  expanse  of  mirror;  or  when  one 
laughs  in  the  pelt  of  warm  sea-rain  from  a  ragged  gray  sky 
of  clouds ;  or  peers  for  blue-black  squalls  darkling  upon  the 
silver  moonlit  waves;  or  lifts  prideful,  fond  eyes  to  the 
small  ship's  goodly  spars  standing  fast  in  a  white  gale;  or 
gazes  in  marvel  at  those  same  spars  lighted  to  flame  by 
the  red-gilt  morning  sunrays  from  over  some  green  and 
purple  savage  isle  feared  of  God  and  man ;  or  braces  to  the 
Pacific  rollers  bowling  upon  the  surface  of  the  eternal 
unagitated  depths;  or  scans  the  configuration  of  coasts 
from  inadequate  charts ;  or  steers,  tense,  breathless,  through 
the  gateways  of  but  half -known  reefs,  into  enchanted  coral- 
rings  below  ' l  the  lap  of  the  Line  " ;  or  looks  with  misleading 
candor  into  the  eyes  of  man-eating  human  beings ;  or  being 
received  ashore  on  scented  Polynesian  ' '  fragments  of  Para 
dise"  aplume  with  waving  palms,  with  brown  embraces,  into 
the  "high  seat  of  abundance."  It  is  all  wonder  and  deep 
delight,  this  ' l  smoke  of  life ' ' ;  and  often  and  often  we  sur 
prised  ourselves  thinking  or  voicing  our  pity  for  the  "vain 
people  of  landsmen"  who  have  no  care  for  such  joys  as 
ours.  Jack,  embodiment  of  fearlessness,  so  vivid  in 


168  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

thought,  and  action,  and  body,  was  a  ringing  challenge 
to  any  who  were  not  half-dead. 

On  November  24, 1907,  in  126°  20'  W.Lon.,  60°  47'  N.Lat, 
Jack  wrote  George  Sterling: 

"  Oh,  You  Greek  :— 

"I  haven't  received  a  letter  for  two  months,  and  two  months 
more  will  probably  elapse  before  I  pick  up  a  mountain  of  mail  in 
Papeete.  You  know  what  my  mail  is — think  of  four  months  of  it 
coming  in  one  swat ! 

"49  days  next  Monday  since  last  saw  Hilo  and  land,  and  we're 
in  the  Doldrums  now,  the  Marquesas  many  hundreds  of  miles  away. 

' '  Did  anybody  ever  tell  you  that  it 's  a  hard  voyage  from  Hawaii 
to  the  Marquesas?  .  .  .  The  South  Sea  Directory  says  that  the 
whaleship  captains  doubted  if  it  could  be  accomplished  from 
Hawaii  to  Tahiti — which  is  much  easier  than  the  Marquesas. 
We've  had  to  fight  every  inch  of  easting,  in  order  to  be  able  to  make 
the  islands  when  we  fall  in  with  the  S.  E.  traders.  .  .  .  The  first  two 
weeks  out  of  Hilo  we  met  the  N.  E.  trades  well  around  to  the 
east  and  even  at  times  a  bit  north  of  east.  Result  was  we  sagged 
south  (across  a  westerly  current)  and  made  practically  no  easting 
till  we  struck  the  Variables. 

"But  I'm  working  every  day! 

"Say,  you've  seen  dolphin.  Think  of  catching  them  on  rod 
and  reel!  That's  what  I'm  doing.  Gee!  You  ought  to  see  them 
take  the  line  out  (I  have  600  yards  on  the  reel,  and  need  it  all). 
The  first  one  fought  me  about  twenty  minutes,  when  I  hauled  him 
to  gaff — four  feet  six  inches  of  blazing  beauty. 

"When  they  strike,  they  run  away  like  mad,  leaping  into  the 
air  again  and  again,  prodigiously,  and  in  each  mid-leap,  shaking 
their  heads  like  young  stallions. 

' ' 1  find  it  hard  to  go  to  sleep  after  catching  one  of  them.  The 
leaping,  blazing  beauty  of  it  gets  on  my  brain. 

"I  never  saw  dolphins  really  until  this  trip.  Pale-blue,  after 
being  struck,  they  turn  golden.  On  deck,  of  course,  afterward, 
they  run  the  gamut  of  color.  But  in  the  water,  after  the  first  wild 
run,  they  are  pure  gold. 

"I  am  going  to  write  up  the  voyage  of  the  Snark  and  entitle 


ECUADOR;  PANAMA;  HOME       169 

it:     ' Around  the   World  with   Three   Gasoline   Engines   and   a 
Wife.'  " 

And  a  postscript :  ' l  Talk  about  luck !  I  have  played  poker  and 
I  have  now  lost  the  ninth  successive  time,  eight  out  of  the  nine 
times  being  the  only  loser.  You  can't  beat  that,  you  ever-blessed 
Greek!  "Wolf." 

In  Jack's  ten-weeks'  mail  at  Tahiti  was  a  letter  from 
his  children's  mother,  announcing  her  approaching  nup 
tials.  His  natural  paternal  interest  in  the  prospective  step 
father  of  his  two  daughters,  combined  with  news  of  the  cur 
rent  panic  in  Wall  Street,  determined  a  break  in  the  Snark 
voyage.  We  took  a  thirty-days'  round-trip  to  San  Fran 
cisco,  on  the  old  S.S.  Mariposa,  whose  roomy  portholes  were 
model  for  the  means  of  "Martin  Eden's"  suicide.  Once 
more  in  Tahiti,  Jack  wrote  Cloudesley  Johns  under  date  of 
February  17,  1908 : 

"Oh,  you  can't  lose  the  Snark.  By  the  time  Charmian  and  I 
had  arrived  in  Frisco,  we  were  both  saying:  'Me  for  the  Snark' 
We  were  honestly  homesick  for  her.  We  're  a  whole  lot  safer  on  the 
Snark  than  on  the  streets  of  San  Francisco.  Wish,  often,  that  you 
could  be  with  us  on  some  of  our  jamborees  and  adventures.  We 
sail  from  here  in  several  days  for  Samoa,  the  Fijiis,  New  Cale 
donia,  and  the  Solomons.  Have  just  finished  a  145,000  word  novel 
that  is  an  attack  upon  the  bourgeoisie  and  all  that  the  bourgeoisie 
stands  for.  It  will  not  make  me  any  friends.  [This  was  " Martin 
Eden'7.] 

"  'The  Iron  Heel'  ought  to  be  out  by  now.  I  wonder  what 
you  will  think  of  it. 

' '  Have  just  finished  Austin  Lewis ' '  American  Proletariat. '  It 's 
good  stuff. ' ' 

Somewhere  along  our  gorgeous  sea  highway,  the  mail 
brought  Jack  word  of  the  public's  reception  of  "The  Iron 
Heel,"  which  cast  him  into  temporary  gloom. 

"Just  the  same,"  he  burst  into  his  sunny  chuckle,  "I 
told  the  bourgeoisie  a  thing  or  two  they  didn't  know  about 


170      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

the  way  their  blessed  laws  are  made!'*  He  referred  espe 
cially  to  the  Dick  Militia  Bill,  passed  by  the  Senate  in  1903. 
For  some  reason  best  known  to  the  Solons,  very  few  Ameri 
cans  knew  of  this  bill.  Practically  none  but  the  Socialist 
papers  gave  it  notice.  Chapter  VIII  of  "The  Iron  Heel" 
started  considerable  publicity  for  both  himself  and  Eepre- 
sentative  Dick  of  Ohio.  I  have  in  my  hand  a  clipping 
as  late  as  February  1917,  headed:  "State  Guards  in  a 
Dilemma :  Dick  Bill  and  National  Defense  Act  Conflict  With 
Some  of  the  Units. ' ' 

Jack,  pressed  to  relate  our  wildest  experiences  in  can- 
nibaldom,  would  sometimes  tell  the  following : 

"We  had  excitement  enough,  as  Charmian  will  testify;  but 
there  were  no  such  hairbreadth  escapes  as  that  of  a  missionary  we 
heard  of.  This  good  fellow  was  preaching  in  one  of  the  islands 
where  man-eating  is  practised,  and  was  captured  by  a  skeptical 
chief.  To  his  surprise,  he  was  immediately  released,  but  on  the 
condition  that  he  carry  a  small  sealed  packet  to  a  neighboring 
mountain  chief.  The  missionary  was  so  grateful  that,  meeting  a 
detachment  of  English  sailors  from  a  battle  cruiser,  he  declined  to 
accompany  them  to  a  safer  territory.  The  sealed  packet  should  be 
delivered  as  he  had  promised.  But  an  officer  in  the  midst  of  the 
discussion  opened  it.  Therein,  tucked  among  some  small  onions, 
was  a  message  to  the  chief : 

"  'The  bearer  will  be  delicious  with  these.'  ' 

During  the  space  in  time  taken  up  by  the  SnarJc  episode, 
namely  between  April  1907  and  July  1909,  Jack  London,  in 
addition  to  the  administration  of  ship's  affairs,  recreation, 
wide  reading,  sightseeing,  and  weeks  idle  from  illnesses, 
wrote  the  equivalent  of  more  than  eight  full  volumes,  as 
follows : 

"The  Cruise  of  the  Snark,"  published  serially  in  The 
Cosmopolitan  and  Harper's  Weekly. 

"Martin  Eden/'  begun  in  Honolulu  in  summer  of  1907, 
finished  at  Papeete,  Tahiti,  February  1908,  and  serial  pub- 


ECUADOE;  PANAMA;  HOME       171 

lication  commenced  in  The  Pacific  Monthly,  of  Portland, 
Oregon,  in  September  of  same  year. 

"Adventure,"  a  novel  depicting  the  manner  of  life  we 
lived  ashore  in  the  Solomons.  Begun  while  cruising  among 
that  Group,  and  often  interrupted  for  the  writing  of  timely 
short  work. 

4  *  South  Sea  Tales."  These  splendid  stories,  unlike 
the  later  ones  in  "A  Son  of  the  Sun,"  were  written  dur 
ing  the  voyage. 

4 'The  House  of  Pride"  collection  of  Hawaii  romances. 
"Burning  Daylight."    This  novel  was  started  in  Quito, 
Ecuador. 

And  short  stories,  later  dispersed  throughout  five  differ 
ent  volumes : 

"The  Chinago"  ("When  God  Laughs") 
"A  Piece  of  Steak"  ("When  God  Laughs") 
"Make  Westing"  ("When  God  Laughs") 
"South  of  the  Slot"  ("The  Night-Born") 
"The  Other  Animals"   (Article  replying  to  Theodore 
Roosevelt's  attack  upon  the  "nature  fakers,"  and  collected 
in  "Revolution.") 

"Nothing  that  Ever  Came  to  Anything"  ("The  Human 
Drift.") 

In  Australia,  Jack,  on  condition  that  I  should  accom 
pany  him,  reported  the  Burns-Johnson  prizefight  for 
The  Star,  Sydney,  and  the  New  York  Herald.  He  also  wrote 
a  series  of  articles  upon  his  general  local  impressions,  as 
well  as  the  labor  situation  in  the  Commonwealth  from  his 
socialist  viewpoint.  All  of  this  work  I  shall  collect  at  a 
future  date  for  book  publication. 

Jack  had  much  fun  over  the  charge  of  "nature-faking," 
inasmuch  as  it  arose  over  a  misreading  on  the  part  of  the 
President,  of  the  incident,  in  "White  Fang,"  of  the  wolf- 
dog  killing  the  lynx ;  whereas  Mr.  Eoosevelt  erroneously  at 
tacked  the  author  for  having  the  lynx  do  away  with  the  dog. 


172      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

I!  must  not  be  forgotten  that  throughout  the  traverse  of 
the  Pacific,  Jack  failed  not  in  sounding  his  trumpet  for  the 
brotherhood  of  man.  Wherever  opportunity  presented,  he 
either  debated,  as  in  Honolulu,  or  lectured,  as  in  Tahiti  and 
Samoa,  or  used  his  pen  when  too  ill  to  speak,  as  in  Australia. 

I  might  mention,  if  I  have  not  previously  done  so,  that 
Jack  was  accustomed,  in  the  course  of  his  literary  career, 
to  seek  perspective  upon  his  plots  and  motifs  before  de 
veloping  them  on  paper;  but  during  the  Snarls  voyage  he 
often  went  at  the  actual  weaving  of  a  story  rather  than 
merely  filing  notes  upon  it. 

For  the  benefit  of  editors  and  readers  who  have  scoffed 
at  Jack  London 's  novel  "  Adventure "  as  an  inaccurate, 
over-drawn  picture  of  savagery  in  the  Twentieth  Century, 
I  select  passages  from  his  letter  to  George  Sterling,  from 
the  Solomon  Islands,  October  31,  1908: 

1 '  For  the  last  three  or  four  months  the  Snark  has  been  cruising 
about  the  Solomons.  This  is  about  the  rawest  edge  of  the  world. 
Head-hunting,  cannibalism  and  murder  are  rampant.  Among  the 
worst  islands  of  the  group,  day  and  night  we  are  never  unarmed, 
and  night  watches  are  necessary.  Charmian  and  I  went  on  a  cruise 
on  another  boat  around  the  island  of  Malaita.  We  had  a  black 
crew.  The  natives  we  encountered,  men  and  women,  go  stark 
naked,  and  are  armed  with  bows,  arrows,  spears,  tomahawks,  war- 
clubs  and  rifles.  (Have  Fiji  and  Solomon  war-clubs  for  you.) 
When  ashore  we  always  had  armed  sailors  with  us,  while  the  men 
in  the  whale-boat  laid  by  their  oars  with  the  bow  of  the  boat  pointed 
seaward.  We  went  swimming  once  in  the  mouth  of  a  fresh-water 
river,  and  all  about  us  in  the  bush  our  sailors  were  on  guard,  while 
we,  when  we  undressed,  left  our  clothes  conspicuously  in  one  place, 
and  our  weapons  hidden  in  another,  so  that  in  case  of  surprise  we 
would  not  do  the  obvious  thing. 

"And  to  cap  it  all,  we  got  wrecked  on  a  reef.  The  minute 
before  we  struck  not  a  canoe  was  in  sight.  But  they  began  to 
arrive  like  vultures  out  of  the  blue.  Half  of  our  sailors  held  them 
off  with  rifles,  while  the  other  half  worked  to  save  the  vessel.  And 


ECUADOB;  PANAMA;  HOME       173 

down  on  the  beach  a  thousand  bushmen  gathered  for  the  loot. 
But  they  didn't  get  it,  nor  us. 

"Am  leaving  here  in  two  days  to  go  to  Sydney,  where  I  go 
into  hospital  for  an  operation.  And  I  have  other  afflictions,  from 
a  medical  standpoint  vastly  more  serious  than  the  operation. " 

The  one  and  only  reason  that  our  splendid  adventure 
terminated  in  two  years  instead  of  seven,  or  ten,  or  un 
numbered  years,  was  that  Jack  London's  supersensitive  or 
ganism  prevented.  I  remember  him  arguing,  in  Hawaii, 
with  Dr.  E.  S.  Goodhue,  the  point  of  his  working-pace  in 
the  tropics.  Neither  Jack  nor  I  was  willing  to  forego 
any  jot  of  our  activity,  mental  or  physical.  In  the  end, 
the  ultra-violet  rays  exacted  their  toll  of  his  nervous  system, 
as  the  Doctor  had  forewarned.  In  his  own  words : 

"I  went  to  Australia  to  go  into  hospital,  where  I  spent  five 
weeks.  [The  operation  was  for  a  double-fistula,  caused  we  never 
knew  how.]  I  spent  five  months  miserably  sick  in  hotels.  The 
mysterious  malady  that  affected  my  hands  was  too  much  for  the 
Australian  specialists.  ...  It  extended  from  my  hands  to  my 
feet  so  that  at  times  I  was  helpless  as  a  child.  On  occasion  my 
hands  were  twice  their  natural  size,  with  seven  dead  and  dying 
skins  peeling  off  at  the  same  time.  There  were  times  when  my 
toe-nails,  in  twenty-four  hours,  grew  as  thick  as  they  were  long. 
After  filing  them  off,  inside  another  twenty-four  hours  they  were 
as  thick  as  before. 

"The  Australian  specialists  agreed  that  the  malady  was  non- 
parasitic,  and  that,  therefore,  it  must  be  nervous.  It  did  not  mend, 
and  it  was  impossible  for  me  to  continue  the  voyage  ...  I  reasoned 
that  in  my  own  climate  of  California  I  had  always  maintained  a 
stable  nervous  equilibrium. 

"Since  my  return  I  have  completely  recovered.  And  I  have 
found  out  what  was  the  matter  with  me.  I  encountered  a  book 
by  Lieutenant  Colonel  Charles  E.  Woodruff  of  the  United  States 
Army,  entitled  'Effects  of  Tropical  Light  on  White  Men.'  Then 
I  knew  ...  In  brief,  I  had  a  strong  predisposition  toward  the  tis- 
sue-destructiveness  of  tropical  light.  I  was  being  torn  to  pieces  by 


174  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

the  ultra-violet  rays  just  as  many  experimenters  with  the  X-Ray 
have  been  torn  to  pieces. 

"In  passing,  I  may  mention  that  among  other  afflictions  that 
jointly  compelled  the  abandonment  of  the  voyage,  was  one  that  is 
variously  called  the  healthy  man's  disease,  European  leprosy,  and 
Biblical  leprosy.  Unlike  True  leprosy,  nothing  is  known  of  this 
mysterious  malady  .  .  .  The  only  hope  the  doctors  had  held  out 
to  me  was  a  spontaneous  cure,  and  such  a  cure  was  mine."  [This 
was  simply  psoriasis,  as  known  in  the  United  States,  for  which 
many  cures  are  advertised,  but  none  known  that  is  efficacious.] 

Finally,  as  a  tribute  to  my  own  whole-hearted  devo 
tion  to  the  voyage  and  all  that  it  meant,  Jack  offers : 

*  *  A  last  word :  the  test  of  the  voyage.  It  is  easy  enough  for  me 
or  any  man  to  say  that  it  was  enjoyable.  But  there  is  a  better  wit 
ness,  the  one  woman  who  made  it  from  beginning  to  end.  In  hos 
pital  when  I  broke  the  news  to  Charmian  that  I  must  go  back  to 
California,  the  tears  welled  into  her  eyes.  For  two  days  she  was 
wrecked  and  broken  by  the  knowledge  that  the  happy,  happy  voyage 
was  abandoned.'* 

The  venture  definitely  thrown  over,  Jack  dispersed  his 
crew,  laid  up  the  Snark  in  one  of  beautiful  Sydney  Har 
bor's  green  crannies,  and  shipped  home  our  effects.  The 
yacht  eventually  netted  less  than  one-tenth  of  her  original 
inflated  price,  and  went  to  trade  and  recruit  in  the  New 
Hebrides.  Jack  and  I,  loath  to  retrace  our  way  across  the 
ocean  in  conventional  mode,  watched  for  chance  to  ship 
on  anything  but  a  passenger  liner.  Our  luck  it  was  to 
catch,  upon  extremely  short  notice,  a  rusty  leviathan  of 
a  Scotch  collier,  the  Tymeric,  Captain  Kobert  Mcllwaine, 
from  Newcastle,  N.S.W.,  to  Guayaquil,  Ecuador.  With 
us  sailed  Yoshimatsu  Nakata,  the  eighteen-year-old,  father 
ly  Japanese  soul  who  had  joined  the  Snark  as  cabin  boy 
when  we  left  Hawaii.  Nakata  remained  our  loving  and 
beloved  shadow  for  nine  responsible  years;  and  I  feel 
free  to  assert,  for  Jack  London  as  well  as  myself,  that 


ECUADOR;  PANAMA;  HOME       175 

when  the  faithful  brown  boy  came  to  marry  and  resign  from 
our  service  at  the  end  of  1915,  life  never  seemed  quite  the 
same  again.  Nakata  is  since  a  graduate  of  the  San  Fran 
cisco  College  of  Physicians  and  Surgeons,  and  success 
fully  wields  his  fashionable  forceps  in  his  own  offices  in 
Honolulu,  with  two  assistants. 

"No  man  is  a  hero  to  his  valet "  was  not  applicable  in 
Jack  London's  household.  Servants  worshiped  him,  for 
he  never  tired  helping  them  with  his  knowledge  of  all  kinds. 

For  nearly  three  weeks  after  she  stood  out  at  sea,  the 
Tymeric,  resembling  a  log  awash,  fought  a  violent  gale.  I 
was  time  and  again  laid  low  with  the  terrible  Solomon  Island 
malaria.  Jack  and  Nakata,  suffering  only  occasional  light 
attacks,  nursed  me  like  gentlest  women.  Jack  was  espe 
cially  sympathetic  in  that  I  was  missing  the  magnificent 
sight,  from  the  bridge,  of  the  plunging,  submerging  hull  of 
the  steamer,  which  he,  "who  lived  with  storms  and  spaces 
like  a  kinsman,"  as  some  one  has  aptly  said,  so  reveled  in. 
Here  is  his  reference  to  the  gale : 

"  We  were  a  tramp  collier,  rusty  and  battered,  with  six  thousand 
tons  of  coal  in  our  hold.  Life  lines  were  stretched  fore  and  aft ; 
and  on  our  weather  side,  attached  to  smokestack  guys  and  rigging, 
were  huge  rope-nettings,  hung  there  for  the  purpose  of  breaking 
the  force  of  the  seas  and  so  saving  our  mess-room  doors.  But  the 
doors  were  smashed  and  the  mess-room  washed  out  just  the  same. ' ' 

Yet  Jack  compared  all  this  as  monotonous  alongside 
sailing  a  small  boat  on  San  Francisco  Bay. 

We  were  forty-three  days  on  this  passage,  seeing  land 
but  twice,  and  upon  two  successive  days — first,  fair  Pit- 
cairn  Island  of  Bounty  fame,  on  the  southernmost  edge  of 
the  farflung  Paumotus  whose  northernmost  edge  we  had 
skirted  when  westward-bound;  and  next,  the  low  isle  of 
Ducie,  its  tropic  scents  of  blossom  and  cocoanut  borne  out 
across  the  water  on  the  warm  breeze. 

Captain  Mcllwaine  proved  a  mine  of  interest  to  Jack, 


176      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

who  wrote  a  brace  of  his  most  thoughtful  stories,  "Samuel" 
and  "The  Sea  Farmer"  (in  "The  Strength  of  the  Strong") 
from  notes  made  from  the  canny  skipper 's  yarns.  I  worked 
up  a  County  McGee,  North  of  Ireland,  vocabulary  for  Jack, 
often  reporting  the  quaint  speech  under  the  table  at  meals. 
The  Skipper  caught  me  at  it,  I  know;  but  he  continued 
generously  unabated  in  reminiscence. 

Here  is  part  of  a  letter  Jack  wrote  off  Pitcairn  Island  on 
May  2,  to  George  Sterling: 

"Never  you  mind  N and  all  the  other  little  bats,  but  go 

on  hammering  out  beauty.  If  the  urge  comes  from  within  to  write 
propaganda,  all  right;  otherwise  you  violate  yourself.  There  are 
plenty  who  can  do  propaganda,  but  darned  few  that  can  create 
beauty.  Some  day  you  may  see  your  way  to  fuse  both,  but  mean 
while  do  what  you  heart  listeth. 

"  *  Memory'  is  great!  I've  read  it  aloud  a  dozen  times.  (You 
should  see  us,  George,  when  you  send  us  a  new  poem!  We  sit 
and  read  it  with  tears  in  our  eyes!)  " 

One  could  draw  a  sheaf  of  sketches  upon  that  month  in 
Ecuador.  We  climbed  great  Chimborazo,  twelve  thousand 
feet  of  its  twenty-two  thousand,  on  the  wonderful  American 
railway;  thence  descended  two  thousand  feet  to  Quito, 
where,  at  the  Hotel  Eoyal,  over  a  fortnight  was  spent ;  and 
before  sailing  upon  the  Erica  for  Panama,  friends  took  us 
alligator-hunting  up  the  River  Guayas,  where  Jack,  who 
never  did  anything  by  halves,  laid  in  a  large  supply  of 
salted  skins. 

As  to  this  marvelous  country,  he  ever  afterward 
raved  of  its  possibilities  of  agricultural  development,  and 
advised  more  than  one  ambitious  young  man  that  Ecuador 
would  give  him  "the  chance  of  his  life." 

There  are  many  incidents  that  throw  added  light 
upon  Jack  London 's  individuality.  Such  as  his  indignation 
toward  the  unfair  methods  of  the  bull-ring,  as  against  the 
"  white-man 's  game"  of  prizefighting — his  passion  leading 


ECUADOR;  PANAMA;  HOME       177 

him  to  write  "The  Madness  of  John  Harned"  (in  "The 
Night-Born");  and  his  interest,  for  once,  in  American 
horse-racing  as  practised  in  Quito;  and  the  Latin- Ameri 
can  character  as  displayed  about  him,  in  public,  and  in 
the  clubs  where  he  took  a  look-in  at  the  gambling  of 
Ecuadorian  gentlemen  and  their  psychology  as  regarded 
payment  of  losses.  He  was  in  the  best  of  humor  for  most 
of  the  sojourn,  little  troubled  with  fever,  and  spilled  some 
of  his  whimsical  disgust  at  the  undependableness  of  Quito 's 
inhabitants  in  a  humorous  skit,  "Nothing  that  Ever  Came 
to  Anything"  (in  "The  Human  Drift"),  which  is  the  nar 
ration  of  an  actual  occurrence. 

One  sweet  manifestation  of  himself  shone  out  one  day 
when  I  was  strolling  alone.  A  spic-and-span  victoria  was 
sent  all  over  the  shopping  district  to  find  me,  because,  for 
sooth,  a  peddler  with  her  basket  of  laces  had  come  to  our 
rooms,  and  Jack  did  not  want  me  to  miss  her.  He  hovered 
about  the  pair  of  us  seated  on  the  floor  in  a  sea  of  needle 
work,  inciting  me  to  satisfy  my  craving  to  the  uttermost.  A 
day  he  spent  taking  me  to  convents,  in  search  for  embroid 
eries,  and  joined  in  a  blanket-haggling  revel  in  an  old  plaza 
— brilliant  native  dyes  of  hand-loom  weaves  from  llama 
wool.  He  did  balk,  however,  at  adding  a  tiny,  shivering 
green  monkey  to  the  menage. 

In  Panama,  a  rousing  American  military  Fourth  of  July 
was  followed  by  a  ten  days '  stay  at  the  Hotel  Tivoli,  whence 
we  explored  some  of  the  surrounding  country,  saw  the  work 
of  the  great  canal,  and  shopped  in  the  Chinese  stores.  And 
I  must  take  space  for  something  that  happened  on  the 
evening  of  the  Fourth.  The  hotel  was  jammed,  and  we 
were  obliged  to  share  our  small  table  with  an  American 
couple.  The  man  appeared  to  be  much  the  worse  for  the 
climate,  and  his  wife  evidently  spent  her  life  soothing  him 
into  a  semblance  of  fitness  for  association  with  his  kind. 
We  extended  the  ordinary  courtesies  to  them  both,  but  it 


178  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

was  no  use.  After  the  man  had  sourly  declined  several 
things  passed  him,  suddenly,  to  Jack,  he  burst : 

"I  don't  want  anything  from  you!" 

Jack  gulped.  I  went  chill,  as  when  Manyoungi  had  in 
vited  destruction,  but  again  misjudged  my  man.  Instead 
of  blowing  up  as  the  terrified  woman  expected,  Jack  turned 
to  her,  and  quietly,  without  interruption,  at  length  and  sans 
haste,  told  her  exactly  what  he  thought  of  her  husband  and 
how  sorry  he  was  for  her.  The  poor  lady,  already  blanched 
and  wilted,  never  raised  her  eyes  nor  opened  her  lips.  Nor 
did  her  companion.  They  presently  rose  and  left  the  table. 

"I  couldn't  help  it,"  Jack  apologized  to  me.  "I  was 
sorry  for  her,  and  I  did  her  a  service,  I  do  believe — just  in 
telling  her,  before  him,  what  a  skunk  he  is !" 

I  never  saw  Jack  smite  anybody  except  with  a  tongue- 
lashing;  and,  so  far  as  I  know,  during  our  years  together 
he  never  but  once  struck  a  man. 

We  sailed  from  Colon  on  the  Turrialba  for  New  Orleans. 
My  temperature  on  the  day  of  arrival,  if  memory  serves, 
was  104°,  and  I  continued  for  a  year  to  suffer  intermittent 
attacks  of  malaria.  But  Jack,  again  in  his  home-land,  soon 
had  cast  all  trace  of  fever,  as  well  as  of  psoriaris,  forever 
into  the  discard. 

From  New  Orleans  to  Oakland  his  return  was  hailed 
by  the  newspapers,  and  reporters  boarded  the  train  at  a 
number  of  towns.  We  stopped  over  but  once,  at  the  Grand 
Canon  of  the  Colorado,  where  we  found  ourselves  hospit 
ably  entertained  by  the  Manager  of  the  Hotel  El  Tovar  and 
his  wife,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Brandt,  as  guests  of  the  proprietor, 
Mr.  Fred  Harvey.  On  July  24,  1909,  we  were  once  more 
at  home  in  Wake  Robin  Lodge. 


CHAPTER  XXXII 

BETTJBN  FBOM  SNABK  VOYAGE;  A  DAUGHTER  IS  BORN 
End— 1909-1910 

HOMECOMING,  after  twenty-seven  months  of  absence, 
was  not  the  least  of  our  enviable  experiences.  There 
was  so  much  to  see  and  do.  The  great  stone  barn  was 
completed,  roofed  with  red  Spanish  tile,  and  sheltered, 
besides  horses  and  vehicles,  all  of  our  magnificent  collection 
of  South  Sea  curios.  Concerning  this  small  museum,  much 
mirth  had  escaped  from  the  Custom  House  into  the  press 
as  to  its  value  in  dollars  and  cents.  Jack's  "declaration" 
had  perforce  been  couched  entirely  in  terms  of  stick-tobacco, 
which  had  been  the  sole  medium  of  exchange  with  the  sav 
ages  of  Melanesia. 

Then  Eanch  improvements  were  to  be  inspected,  to 
gether  with  the  modest  increase  in  stock — colts  and  calves, 
chickens,  ducks,  and  pigeons.  Most  exciting  of  all,  my 
Aunt,  as  Jack's  agent,  had  added  to  our  possessions  the 
tiny  "Fish  Ranch"  and  the  La  Motte  hundred  and  thirty 
acres  adjoining  Wake  Robin,  as  well  as  a  broad  strip  con 
necting  the  same  with  the  Hill  property — Jack's  "Beauty 
Ranch. "  There  was  but  one  fly  in  the  ointment  as  regarded 
the  new  acquisition.  Certain  men  had  so  conducted  nego 
tiations  as  to  leave  Jack's  agent  in  ignorance  of  a  serious 
drawback  to  ownership  of  the  land:  upon  it  rested  a  thir 
teen-year  lease  of  a  valuable  pit  which  furnished  clay  for 
the  Glen  Ellen  brickyard.  This  was  not  so  bad  in  itself,  but 
the  lease  also  covered  standing  timber,  which  might  be  cut 
at  any  time  by  the  lessees  for  use  in  the  brick-kiln  furnaces. 

179 


180  THE  BOOK  OP  JACK  LONDON 

Jack,  in  the  face  of  unalterable  circumstances,  naturally 
made  the  most  of  the  fact  that  he  was  entitled  to  "ten 
cents  a  yard"  for  all  clay  hauled  down  hill,  and  in  course 
of  time  netted  a  tidy  sum  which,  I  must  insert,  did  not  com 
pensate  him  for  the  annoyance  of  a  dusty,  rutted  right-of- 
way  over  his  land,  to  say  nothing  of  the  constant  reminder, 
whenever  plodding  teams  and  creaking  loads  in  clouds  of 
dust  crossed  his  vision,  of  the  dishonest  dealings  of  his  fel 
low  men.  The  nuisance  was  before  long  abated,  and  finally 
ceased  altogether,  for  the  brickyard  went  out  of  business 
previous  to  its  requirement  of  any  firewood  from  the  La 
Motte  land.  It  may  interest  travelers  to  know  that  the 
hollow  brick  used  in  the  beautiful  Hotel  Oakland,  in  Jack's 
home  town,  was  made  at  Glen  Ellen  from  material  mined 
on  the  Jack  London  Eanch. 

Meanwhile,  nothing  daunted,  Jack,  with  fabulous  forests 
in  his  far-seeing  eye,  had  hesitated  not  to  set  out  15,000 
baby  eucalyptus  trees,  bought  from  Stratton  'a  in  Petaluma, 
trying  out  their  vitality  on  the  most  impoverished  section  of 
the  La  Motte  holding. 

My  perspective  of  the  latter  months  of  1909,  from  our 
return  in  mid-July  on  into  the  winter,  is  not  one  of  unalloyed 
pleasure.  For  exuberance  in  our  general  happy  estate  was 
sorely  tempered  by  anemia  and  sporadic  attacks  of  the  vi 
cious  malaria  that  so  impaired  my  usefulness,  as  well  as  any 
fair  qualities  I  may  have  possessed  as  hostess.  And  from 
the  first  week,  Jack  and  I  were  not  for  a  day  without  guests. 
Hospitality  is  a  beautiful  thing  in  itself ;  but  I  leave  to  the 
reader  my  frame  of  mind,  when  time  and  again  I  was 
obliged  to  lie  up  for  days,  my  work  going  behind,  and, 
not  the  least  of  my  troubles,  the  pitiable  effect  this  helpless 
ness  worked  in  Jack.  Whenever  anything  interfered  with 
"the  Cheery  One's"  cheeriness,  Jack,  under  no  matter  what 
merry  dissembling,  was  lamentably  at  outs  with  existence. 

Despair  seemed  to  reacn  its  height  when  during  the 
duck  season,  I  had  to  remain  home  from  a  long-contem- 


A  DAUGHTER  IS  BOEN  181 

plated  yachting  trip  up-river  which  was  to  include  a 
house-guest,  Louis  Augustin,  from  Canada,  and  the  Sterl 
ings.  Only  at  the  last  moment  did  I  give  in,  and  keep  to 
my  bed.  This  cruise  was  made  in  a  rented  sloop,  Phyllis, 
and  lasted  for  several  weeks.  Jack  was  not  well,  and  re 
turned  quite  ill,  but  was  soon  himself.  In  the  interim,  I 
had  patronized  Burke 's  Sanitarium  for  a  week — a  lovely 
Mecca  in  our  own  county,  administered  by  a  noble  man,  Mr. 
J.  P.  Burke — and  felt  greatly  improved.  Burke 's,  by  the  way, 
had  formerly  been  Altruria,  a  cooperative  colony  of  charm 
ing  idealists,  where  I  had  spent  more  than  one  vacation, 
going  about  the  country  on  horseback  for  a  month  at  a  time. 

But  far  be  it  from  me  to  draw  a  veil  of  gloom  over 
that  summer  and  autumn.  There  was  ample  joie  du  vivre 
sprinkled  throughout.  Jack's  work  was  as  always  the  sus 
taining  anchor  for  us  both.  ' '  Burning  Daylight, ' '  the  novel 
commenced  in  Quito,  Ecuador,  was  duly  "signed,  sealed, 
and  delivered"  unto  the  New  York  Herald,  where  it  ap 
peared  serially,  and  was  published  by  Macmillans  in  the 
fall  of  1910.  And  Jack  wrote  one  short  manuscript  beside, 
on  a  request  to  describe  the  most  dramatic  moment  of  his 
life.  This  is  entitled  "That  Dead  Men  Rise  Up  Never"  (in 
"The  Human  Drift"),  a  ghost-story  founded  upon  his  ex 
perience  aboard  the  Sophie  Sulherland,  from  which  I  have 
made  quotation  in  an  early  chapter. 

A  short-story  collection,  "Lost  Face,"  and  the  novel 
"Martin  Eden,"  which  has  helped  shape  the  purposes  of  so 
many,  were  the  two  volumes  brought  out  in  1909.  There  was 
almost  universal  protest  from  readers  of  this  novel  as  to 
its  author's  wisdom  in  killing  off  the  hero.  Jack  held  that 
Martin,  robbed  both  of  love  and  of  pleasure  in  his  too-hard- 
won  fame,  and  finding  no  faith  in  his  fellow  man  to  sus 
tain  him  in  his  loneliness,  had  nothing  left  to  do,  logically 
and  artistically,  but  terminate  a  life  that  had  become  a 
burden.  "Which  is  where  Martin  Eden  and  I  differed," 
Jack  smiled  contentedly.  "To  be  sure,  when  my  own  battle 


182  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

was  won,  I  had  little  use  for  the  spoils,  so  far  as  fame  went; 
but  I  did  not  become  self-centered.    I  solaced  myself  with 
warm  interest  in  my  kind,  and  I  did  find  love — which  is  bet 
ter  than  all."    Whereupon,  he  presented  his  wife  with  the 
first  copy  in  hand,  in  which  he  had  generously  written  : 
"You  see,  Martin  Eden  did  not  have  you!" 
Here  is  a  letter,  dated  April  26,  1910,  to  one  Lillian  Col 
lins  who,  neglecting  to  leave  a  forwarding  address,  never 
came  into  possession  of  Jack's  argument  in  answer  to  her 
protest : 

"In  reply  to  your  good  letter  of  April  22.  I  don't  know 
whether  to  take  it  as  an  unconscious  compliment  to  me,  or  as  a 
subtle  compliment  to  me.  I  quote  from  your  letter :  *  He  was  not 
physically  able  to  defend  himself.  He  was  heartsick;  the  nerves 
of  action  paralyzed  by  enormous  strain,  the  power  to  weigh  and 
analyze,  compare  and  select,  submerged  under  an  overwhelming 
sense  of  loss.' 

' '  From  the  foregoing,  and  much  more  that  you  have  said  in  your 
letter,  you  point  out  to  me  that  I  did  succeed  in  showing  the  in- 
evitableness  of  his  death.  I  was  no  more  treacherous  to  Martin 
Eden  than  life  is  treacherous  to  many,  many  men  and  women.  You 
continually  point  out  to  me  where  I  took  unfair  advantages  of 
Martin  Eden, l  cramming  his  newly  awakened  mind  with  abstraction 
which  his  crude  mental  processes  were  not  able  to  assimilate.' 
Granted;  but  do  not  forget  that  this  was  MY  Martin  Eden,  and 
that  I  manufactured  him  in  this  very  particular,  precise  and  pe 
culiar  fashion.  Having  done  so,  his  untimely  end  is  accounted  for. 
Remember  that  he  was  MY  Martin  Eden,  and  was  made  by  me  in 
this  fashion.  He  certainly  was  not  the  Martin  Eden  that  you 
would  have  made.  I  think  the  disagreement  between  you  and  me 
lies  in  that  you  confuse  my  Martin  Eden  with  your  Martin  Eden. 

"You  say:  'I  look  upon  Martin  Eden's  selfish  individualism 
as  a  crudity  adhering  from  the  boy's  early  habits  of  life — a  lack  of 
perspective  which  time  and  a  wider  horizon  would  correct.'  And 
you  complain  because  he  died.  Your  point  is  that  if  I  had  let  him 
live,  he  would  have  got  out  of  all  this  slough  of  despond.  Again, 
to  make  a  simile  which  I  know  will  be  distasteful  to  you,  let  me 
point  out  that  the  case  is  exactly  parallel  with  that  of  a  beauti- 


A  DAUGHTER  IS  BOEN  183 

ful  young  man,  with  the  body  of  an  Adonis,  who  cannot  swim, 
who  is  thrown  into  deep  water,  and  who  drowns.  You  cry  out, 
Give  the  young  man  time  to  learn  to  swim  while  he  is  drowning,  and 
he  will  not  drown,  but  will  win  safely  to  shore.  And  the  queer 
thing,  reverting  to  the  original  proposition,  is,  that  you  yourself, 
in  sharp,  definite  terms,  point  out  the  very  reasons  why  Martin 
Eden  couldn't  swim,  and  had  to  drown. 

1  'You  tell  me  that  I  asserted  that  love  had  tricked  and  failed 
Martin  Eden,  and  that  you  know  better  and  that  I  know  better. 
On  the  contrary,  from  what  I  know  of  love,  I  believe  that  Martin 
Eden  had  his  first  big  genuine  love  when  he  fell  in  love  with 
Ruth,  and  that  not  he  alone,  but  that  countless  millions  of  men 
and  women,  have  been  tricked  in  one  way  or  another  in  similar 
fashion.  However,  you  are  unfair  in  taking  such  an  assertion 
and  making  the  sweeping  generalization  that  I  deny  all  love  and 
the  greatness  of  all  love. 

"Then,  it  is  an  endless  question.  I  don't  think  you  and  I 
have  so  much  of  a  quarrel  over  Martin  Eden  as  we  have  on  account 
of  our  different  interpretations  of  life.  Your  temperament  and 
your  training  lead  you  one  way — mine  lead  me  another  way.  I 
think  that  right  there  is  the  explanation  of  our  difference. 

''Thanking  you  for  your  good  letter, 

' '  Sincerely  yours, ' ' 

To  one  who  had  interpreted  Martin  Eden  as  a  Socialist, 
Jack  wrote : 

"Contrary  to  your  misinterpretation,  Martin  Eden  was  not  a 
Socialist.  On  the  contrary,  I  drew  him  a  temperamental,  and, 
later  on,  an  intellectual  Individualist.  So  much  was  he  an  In 
dividualist,  that  he  characterized  your  kind  of  Individualism  as 
half-baked  Socialism.  Martin  Eden  was  a  proper  Individualist 
of  the  extreme  Nietzschean  type." 

As  for  public  appearances  in  1909,  Jack  read  "The 
Amateur  M.  D.,"  (from  "The  Cruise  of  the  Snark")  in 
Oakland,  before  the  Rice  Institute  in  Old  Reliance  Hall; 
and  he  spoke  a  number  of  times,  here  and  there,  on  other 
phases  of  the  Snark  voyage.  Once  he  lectured  in  San  Fran 
cisco  for  the  Socialists  in  Dreamland  Rink. 


184  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

" Among  those  present"  at  Wake  Robin  Lodge  that  fall 
were  the  Sterlings;  Jack's  old  friend  Frank  Atherton; 
Cloudesley  Johns  and  his  bride ;  "Lem"  Parton,  author  and 
editor;  Mrs.  Lucy  Parsons,  a  plucky  widow  of  the  Hay- 
market  tragedy  in  Chicago ;  "  A  No.  1,"  the  engaging  gentle 
man-tramp  who  left  his  picturesque  "monaker"  carved  on 
the  Lodge  veranda  as  well  as  along  the  railroad  route  to 
Glen  Ellen,  on  which  he  "beat"  his  passage;  and  Emma 
Goldman  and  Dr.  Ben  Reitman,  who,  with  friendly  naivete, 
tried  to  divert  Jack  from  his  socialism,  which  they  derided, 
toward  their  unconstructive  anarchism,  at  which  he  jeered, 
while  not  depreciating  their  martyr-sincerity  and  courage 
ous,  if  (to  him)  misguided  sacrifices.  Of  these  and  some 
others  he  later  said:  "The  anarchists  whom  I  know  are 
dear,  big  souls  whom  I  like  and  admire  immensely.  But 
they  are  dreamers,  idealists.  I  believe  in  law  .  .  .  you  can 
see  it  in  my  books — all  down  in  black  and  white."  I  have 
more  to  say  about  this  when  presently  drawing  together 
the  threads  of  Jack 's  life  near  its  close. 

And  in  his  two  or  three  days7  entertainment  of  this 
woman  and  man,  one  of  whom  during  the  Great  War  fell 
into  such  evil  fortune,  he  argued  seriously  as  little  as  pos 
sible,  devoting  himself  to  laughing  at  and  with  them,  and 
playing  juvenile  pranks.  One  of  these  was  the  placing 
at  Dr.  Reitman's  plate  of  an  attractive  little  red  book, 
bearing  the  title  "Four  Weeks,  a  Loud  Book."  The 
guest,  somewhat  of  a  joker  himself,  met  his  Waterloo  at 
Jack's  hands.  For  when,  the  book  opened,  it  exploded  with 
loud  report,  "Never,"  Jack  would  laugh  in  retrospect,  "did 
any  one  jump  so  high  as  that  red  anarchist !  He  must  have 
thought  it  was  a  bomb,  for  he  went  positively  green.  He 
has  the  soul  of  a  child — they're  such  soft  people,  anarchists, 
when  it  comes  to  actual  violence — and  when  they  do  try  it, 
they  usually  make  a  mess  of  it  because  they're  dreamers  and 
haven't  learned  practical  brass-tack  ways  of  doing  the  very 
things  they  so  vehemently  preach." 


A  DAUGHTER  IS  BOEN  185 

The  ordinary  camp  recreations  prevailed;  and  Jack, 
upon  which  tenderfoot,  during  the  establishing  of  himself 
as  a  farmer,  certain  unreliable  or  unsound  horseflesh  was 
palmed  off  by  traders  for  substantial  returns,  spent  much 
time,  that  year  and  the  next,  subduing  the  creatures  to  his 
will.  I  was  often  worried  when  he  failed  to  report  for  the 
evening  meal  and  for  hours  afterward.  After  I  had  satis 
fied  myself,  from  repeated  successes,  of  his  prudence  and 
wisdom  in  forestalling  the  scant  and  often  addled  gray- 
matter  of  our  equine  friends,  I  said,  perhaps  carelessly: 

"I  don't  worry  about  you  any  more  when  you  are  out 
with  your  incorrigible  horses  I" 

For  once  our  mental  lines  were  crossed.  Jack  looked  as 
puzzled  and  grieved  as  an  abandoned  child.  I  hastened  to 
explain  the  reason  for  my  lightened  emotions — confidence  in 
his  methods;  whereupon  he  was  as  proud  as  he  had  been 
taken  aback  and  hurt.  It  was  not  wholly  true — my  flat  state 
ment  that  I  had  ceased  to  worry.  There  could  not  fail  to  be 
an  undercurrent  of  apprehension,  while  an  occasional  minor 
accident,  that  left  its  scar  upon  my  man,  or  further  dis 
qualified  delicate  ankle  or  wrist,  prevented  my  nerves  from 
becoming  unresponsive. 

How  he  gloried  in  it  all — how  he  beamed  and  fairly 
quivered  with  achievement  when,  say,  he  had,  with  months 
of  patient  "staying  with  it,"  beguiled  spidery  little  Fleet 
from  her  custom  of  bolting  downhill  with  nose  high  in  air  to 
the  detriment  of  all  control ;  or  his  excusable  bragging  when, 
for  fifteen  hundred  miles,  he  drove  the  notorious  outlaw, 
Gert,  as  wheeler  in  our  four-in-hand — she  who  had  broken 
the  spirit  of  every  owner  who  had  tried  to  hang  harness 
upon  her  rebellious  frame. 

When,  by  Christmas  of  1909,  there  was  no  doubt  that, 
barring  mishap,  June  should  crown  our  enduring  love  with 
parenthood,  our  happiness  was  boundless.  Jack  was  a  new 
man — all  himself  and  something  ineffably  more.  It  showed 


186  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

in  his  every  look,  the  touch  of  his  hands,  the  vibration  of 
his  voice.  When  the  latest  volume,  "  Revolution, "  came  in 
the  spring,  this  is  what  he  wrote  in  the  fly-leaf: 

"My  Mate- Woman: 

"Not  that  I  shall  be  able  to  tell  you  anything  about  revolu 
tion — you,  who  in  a  few  short  weeks  from  now,  will  be  prime  mover 
in  turning  our  Wake  Robin  household  upside  down  with  the  most 
delicious  and  lovable  revolution  that  we  can  ever  hope  to  experi 
ence. 

"Mate  Man. 
"Wake  Robin  Lodge, 
"April  24,  1910." 

Always  I  shall  cherish,  I  think  above  all  others,  the 
memories  of  those  months.  Never  had  I  been  so  joyful,  nor 
so  strong.  It  seems  as  if  all  nature  with  lavish  hands  con 
tributed  to  the  making  of  the  perfect  child  I  desired  and 
bore.  i  l  How  the  birds  do  sing  and  shout ! ' '  raves  my  diary. 
11 — meadow-larks,  blue-jays,  orioles,  linnets  and  wild  can 
aries  bickering  at  bath  and  play ;  gentle  mourning-doves  at 
twilight ;  chattering,  whirring  quail  in  the  warm  woods,  and 
quaint  little  owls  calling  by  night. "  And  "Such  flowered 
fields  I  never  saw!"  Not  the  least  of  our  blisses  was  wan 
dering  in  the  eucalyptus  "forest,"  not  yet  knee-high,  dream 
ing  of  when  they  should  some  day  be  over  our  heads  on 
horse-back.  "They'll  only  be  a  few  months  older  than  our 
boy ! ' '  Jack  would  say. 

We  did  not  stay  strictly  at  home,  but  harnessed  young 
Maid  and  Ben  in  our  light,  yellow- wheeled  run-about,  packed 
writing  materials  and  toilet  articles,  and  drove  for  a  week  at 
a  time  about  the  country,  stopping  over  wherever  it  looked 
good  to  us.  "We  three,"  Jack,  at  this  sweetest  height  of 
living,  would  breathe  leaning  to  my  willing  ear  as  the  bays 
forged  up  mountainsides  or  dropped  into  the  exquisite  val 
leys.  I  have  set  down  these  words  of  his  on  an  April 
morning:  "Wife,  little  mother,  sweetheart — I  cannot  ex 
press  the  love  I  feel  for  you  these  days!" 


A  DAUGHTER  IS  BORN  187 

One  night  we  spent  in  Petaluma,  and  attended  a  per 
formance  by  an  all  but  stranded  company  of  itinerant  play 
ers.  * '  Tell  you  what,  Mate  Woman — if  you  're  game  for  it, ' ' 
Jack  whispered,  "let  me  send  word  behind  for  them  all  to 
join  us  at  supper/7 

It  was  done.  The  affair  came  off.  The  troupe  looked 
hungry,  but  partook  sparingly  of  a  very  good  repast,  as 
if  hesitating  to  divulg'e  their  chronic  emptiness.  Jack 
was  all  keyed  up  to  order  cocktails,  wine,  champagne, 
anything  to  put  them  at  their  ease ;  but  one  spoke  for  light 
beer,  and  the  rest,  every  soul  of  them,  insisted  upon  milk. 

Another  journey  was  to  Carmel-by-the-Sea,  where  we 
were  guests  of  the  George  Sterlings. 

There  is  a  remark  in  the  diary  concerning  lack  of  excite 
ment  in  passing  through  the  tail  of  Halley's  Comet. 

Ernest  Untermann,  socialist,  author,  painter,  and  per 
haps  best  known  as  translator  of  Karl  Marx,  spent  some 
time  at  Wake  Robin,  while  other  friends  came  and  went. 
Eliza,  Shepard,  with  her  boy  Irving,  had  come  to  live  in 
the  little  Fish  Ranch  house,  under  what,  we  always  main 
tained,  was  the  biggest  madrono  in  California;  and  Eliza 
shortly  began  to  assist  Jack  in  the  business  of  the  ranch, 
attending  to  accounts  and  "  overhead. "  For  in  May  we 
had  swelled  our  estate  by  the  seven  hundred  acres  of  the 
Kohler  property,  and  Jack  needed  such  aid  in  carry 
ing  out  his  headful  of  ambitions.  "He's  burgeoning  with 
all  sorts  of  happiness,7'  my  journal  recalls,  "with  love  of 
the  land,  with  his  new  mare,  Gert  the  Outlaw — why,  his  eyes 
glisten  when  he  speaks  of  her;  and  with  life  and  its 
promises. "  In  my  copy  of  "Theft,"  a  play  he  wrote  for 
Olga  Nethersole  that  spring,  but  which  was  never  acted,  he 
inscribed : 

"Dear  My- Woman: 

' '  How  our  days  continue  to  grow  fuller  and  sweeter ! 

' l  Your  Lover-Man. ' ' 


188  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

Speaking  of  "Theft,"  this  time  Jack  considered  he  had 
written  a  fairly  good  play;  but  it  went  the  rounds  of  the 
dramatic  agencies  in  New  York  without  being  placed — 
this  after  Miss  Nethersole  had  decided  against  it.  Besides 
" Theft,"  in  the  first  half  of  1910,  Jack  commenced  a  fan 
tastic  piece  of  long  fiction,  "The  Assassination  Bureau." 
This,  interrupted  by  the  death  of  the  baby,  he  never  fin 
ished.  Only  death  itself,  it  would  seem,  could  compel  that 
man  to  stay  his  hand.  It  is  noteworthy  that  his  only  un 
completed  work  is  this  "The  Assassination  Bureau,"  and 
the  novel  left  less  than  half  finished  when  he  himself  went 
"into  the  dark." 

A  short  Klondike  story,  "The  Night-Born,"  was  also 
written  that  spring,  and  "The  Human  Drift,"  a  synthesis 
of  years  of  research  into  the  great  developing  forces  in 
human  history. 

How  much  one  can  live  through — physically,  mentally — 
and  splendidly  recover  from !  The  baby  was  born  upon  high 
noon  of  Sunday,  June  19,  in  an  Oakland  hospital.  In  my 
little  old  record  I  read :  i '  Then  came  on  the  terrible  hours, 
when  Jack  helped  me,  breathed  with  me,  loved  me  and 

praised  me "    "We  named  her  Joy,  Mate  and  I."    She 

was  a  beautiful  baby,  they  told  me,  all  who  saw  her.  I  was 
so  near  to  fading  out  that  I  feared  my  strength  would  fail 
through  sheer  emotion  if  I  looked  at  the  little  soul  until  I 
had  had  time  to  gather  my  forces;  so  they  carried 
her  away.  When  Eliza  had  come  from  Glen  Ellen  at  Jack 's 
bidding,  she  found  him  so  radiant  with  relief  after  his  own 
sharp  strain,  so  excited  telling  her  of  the  small  one's  fair 
skin  and  gray  eyes,  "Just  like  Mate's  and  mine.  Anglo- 
Saxon  through  and  through!"  that  she  had  difficulty  in 
learning  whether  he  was  father  to  a  son  or  a  daughter. 
The  fact  that  he  had  prayed  for  a  boy  was  forgotten  in  the 
larger  matter  of  a  living,  breathing  child  of  whichever  sex. 


A  DAUGHTER  IS  BOEN  189 

What  lie  said  was :  "Boy  or  girl,  it  does  n't  matter — so  long 
as  it's  Charmian's!" 

Poor  little  Joy!  The  severity  of  her  birth,  coupled 
with  certain  unwisdom,  or  ignorance,  in  the  handling  of  the 
same,  within  thirty-eight  hours  had  cost  her  life.  "A  per 
fect  child,"  they  said,  after  those  perfect  months  that  went 
into  the  creation  of  her.  I  go  on  from  some  notes  headed 
"First  Thoughts":  "He  came  to  me,  and  Eliza,  and,  one 
on  either  side  my  bed,  Mate  told  me  with  a  brave,  bright 
face.  And  I  did  not  make  it  harder  for  him  than  I  could 
help.  But  oh!  the  pity  of  it!  Our  own  baby,  our  little 
daughter,  ours,  our  Joy-Baby,  only  thirty-eight  hours  old — 
gone  in  the  twilight  of  the  morning." 

The  New  York  Herald  had  long  ahead  engaged  Jack  to 
write  up  the  Jeffries- Johnson  prizefight,  wherever  it  should 
be  staged,  together  with  ten  days'  observation,  previous  to 
the  big  event,  of  the  contestants '  camps.  Jack  was  no  more 
loath  to  break  his  pledge  than  I  to  have  him ;  and  it  was  with 
great  satisfaction  to  me,  for  one,  that  I  was  pronounced 
out  of  danger  from  a  slight  operation,  and  that  Jack  could 
go  away  without  apprehension.  The  prospective  scene  of 
the  fight  had  been  moved  over  California  several  times,  and 
finally  settled  upon  Eeno,  Nevada,  so  I  could  not  see  my 
husband  for  the  best  part  of  two  weks.  He  departed  June 
22,  and  sent  me  daily  "Lettergrams."  On  the  morning  of 
the  fight,  he  wired:  "I  wish  you  were  by  my  side  to-day." 

It  was  reported,  I  am  reminded  by  news  clippings  of 
that  month,  that  "Jack  London  lost  heavily  on  the  Reno 
fight. ' '  But  this  could  not  be,  since  he  laid  but  a  few  dollars 
at  most,  and  a  hat,  a  dinner,  and  so  forth. 

And  now,  an  episode,  further  to  make  clear  Jack  Lon 
don's  reactions  to  the  corrupt  injustices  that  may  surround 
such  a  man : 

Having  fortified  myself  against  shock  by  determining 
not  to  be  shocked  by  anything,  if  I  would  live,  on  the  third 


190  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

morning  after  the  baby  came  I  received  in  quiet  the  spec 
tacle  of  my  handsome  husband  with  one  large  optic  neatly 
closed  and  plastered  with  what  appeared  to  be  pink  paint. 

To  my  studiedly  calm  and  interested  inquiry,  he  frankly 
told  me  ' '  all  about  it. "  I  give  the  facts  as  he  related  them : 

Leaving  me  the  day  before,  after  breaking  the  baby's 
death,  he  had  gone  into  Oakland's  business  center  to  at 
tend  to  final  arrangements  for  his  Reno  journey.  Winding 
up  at  the  barber's,  he  then  strolled,  miserable  and  grieving, 
down  Broadway. 

"You  know  how  I  hate  walking,"  he  broke  in.  "And  I 
usually  seem  to  get  into  trouble  when  I  do  walk!  I  swear 
I'll  never  walk  again.  Listen  to  what  happened:" 

Noticing,  in  the  windows  of  the  Oakland  Tribune  office, 
a  display  of  an  "Autobiography  of  Jeffries,"  he  bought 
several  copies,  thinking  to  pass  them  along  to  other  cor 
respondents  at  Eeno.  Continuing,  absorbed  in  the  morn 
ing's  disaster  to  our  hopes,  he  became  aware  that  he  had 
strayed  into  old  haunts,  down  around  Webster  and  Eighth 
and  Ninth  streets — in  his  boyhood  a  respectable  residential 
neighborhood,  but  now  infested  with  Chinese  gambling 
houses. 

As  he  went  along,  pondering  the  great  change,  he  saw 
an  American  saloon,  and  near  its  main  entrance  a  smaller 
door  that  suggested  ingress  to  its  lavatory.  Entering,  he 
found  himself  in  a  narrow  passage-way,  terminating  in  a 
large  room  behind  the  barroom  proper,  and  evidently  a 
night  resort,  judging  from  the  tables  and  chairs.  What  ap 
peared  to  be  two  lavatory  doors  were  at  the  farther  end, 
opening  out  of  a  short  hall  that  led  into  still  another  apart 
ment,  where  a  lowering  figure  sat  eating  alone. 

Jack,  with  a  salutation  to  which  the  other  growled 
something  he  did  not  hear,  opened  a  door  and  passed 
through.  Before  he  had  time  to  shut  it  behind  him,  the 
man  had  thrust  his  foot  inside,  threateningly  ordering  him 
out. 


A  DAUGHTER  IS  BOEN  191 

"I  believe  he  thought  I  was  there  to  post  on  his  walls 
some  of  the  gaudy  literature  I  had  under  my  arm,"  Jack 
told  me.  ' '  At  any  rate,  I  was  not  in  the  mood  for  trouble, 
especially  in  such  cramped  space,  and  spoke  in  a  conciliatory 
way  while  I  got  into  the  big  room  and  made  for  the  passage 
out,  intending  to  escape  as  quick  as  God  would  let  me.  I 
knew  his  kind,  and  wanted  none  of  him.  And  I  thought  of 
you,  and  of  my  promise  to  the  New  York  Herald." 

What  next  took  place — the  man's  unprovoked  attack, 
Jack's  scientific  stalling,  never  striking  a  blow,  the  ap 
pearance  from  the  barroom  of  an  audience  of  pasty-faced 
night-birds  who  came  to  look  on,  and  his  difficulty,  once  he 
had  worked  his  way  to  the  street,  of  getting  an  officer  to  con 
sent  to  arrest  the  dive-keeper — all  this  he  has  graphically 
described  in  a  short  story,  "The  Benefit  of  the  Doubt" 
(in  volume  "The  Night  Born"). 

What  he  did  not  include  in  the  story  was  that  it  turned 
out  that  the  Hebrew  police  judge  who  dared  to  sit  on  the 
case,  was  in  truth  owner  of  the  resort.  Jack  learned  of 
this  through  a  letter  from  a  well-wishing  stranger,  who  sug 
gested  he  look  up  the  records.  When  Eliza  went  to  do  this, 
every  obstacle  was  put  in  her  way;  but  she  prevailed,  and 
her  homecoming  with  the  notes  she  had  made  was  an  occa 
sion  for  triumphant  celebration  in  the  London  household. 

The  reporters,  as  always  paid  to  "give  Jack  Lon 
don  the  worst  of  it  wherever  possible,"  hinted  at  the  vilest 
construction  upon  his  presence  in  the  low  resort.  The  San 
Francisco  Bulletin  account  was  the  most  decent — because, 
according  to  Joseph  Noel,  in  charge  of  the  Oakland  office, 
he  offered  to  throw  up  his  position  rather  than  distort  his 
friend's  account  of  the  one-sided  scrimmage. 

Jack  was  keen  for  the  trial,  but  got  it  postponed  until 
after  the  Eeno  prizefight.  Never  have  I  seen  him  so  cut 
up  as  when  the  Judge  dismissed  the  case,  giving  both  com 
plainants  "the  benefit  of  the  doubt,"  as  faithfully  told 
in  the  story  of  that  name.  And  the  exasperating  newspaper 


192  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

lie  as  to  his  shaking  hands  with  the  dive-proprietor  and 
their  "  departing  for  the  nearest  saloon, "  is  as  accurately 
recorded. 

Jack  worked  off,  in  the  fiction,  a  fantastic  revenge.  The 
eastern  weekly's  editor,  before  accepting  the  yarn,  made 
sure  through  the  author  that  he  would  not  be  liable  for 
libel.  Quite  different  from  his  usual  eventual  tolerance, 
Jack  never  forgave  the  Hebrew  Judge.  "Some  day,  some 
where,  I  am  going  to  'get'  him,"  he  would  say  at  long  inter 
vals.  "I  shall  watch  him  all  years,  and  some  time,  when 
he  least  looks  for  it,  I  shall  get  him.  I  don't  know  just  how 
— perhaps  it  will  be  in  thwarting  his  dearest  ambition ;  but 
mark  my  words,  I  intend  to  get  him."  Jack's  countenance, 
no  matter  how  one  sympathized  with  his  viewpoint,  was  not 
good  to  look  upon  at  such  a  time.  But  his  cards  were  played 
squarely,  as  always,  face  up  on  the  table.  He  sent  the  fol 
lowing  open  letter  (I  typed  it  for  him  during  convalescence) 
to  the  newspapers  of  San  Francisco  and  Oakland,  the  same 
post  carrying  a  copy  to  the  magistrate  that  he  might  be  pre 
pared  for  the  writer's  deadly  interest  in  him: 

"Some  day,  somewhere,  somehow,  I  am  going  to  get 
you  legally,  never  fear.  I  shall  not  lay  myself  open  to  the 
law.  I  know  nothing  about  your  past.  Only  now  do  I  begin 
to  interest  myself  in  your  past,  and  to  keep  an  eye  on  your 
future.  But  get  you  I  will,  some  day,  somehow,  and  I  shall 
get  you  to  the  full  hilt  of  the  law  and  the  legal  procedure 
that  obtains  among  allegedly  civilized  men." 

One  day,  long  afterward,  out  of  a  sudden  whimsey,  Jack 
had  his  sister  telephone  to  arrange  an  interview  for  him  in 
the  office  of  that  grafting  judicator.  "Oh,  I  intend  no 
violence, ' '  he  allayed  my  start ;  "  I  just  want  to  tell  him  a 
'few.'  "  But  the  other  had  hastily  pleaded  an  imminent 
and  important  engagement  elsewhere.  Jack  died  unavenged, 
unless  the  Judge's  conscience,  or  fear  of  his  enemy,  were 
punishment  enough. 

It  was  mainly  grit  that  carried  Jack  through  the  Eeno 


A  DAUGHTER  IS  BORN  193 

period.  He  was  miserably  ill,  probably  from  the  effects  of 
the  Muldowney  struggle,  and  coughed  exhaustingly. 

The  fiasco  of  the  fight  did  not  improve  his  spirits — 
"It  wasn't  a  fight, "  he  wrote  me,  "It  was  awful." 

Once  back  in  Oakland,  and  the  afternoons  with  me  in 
hospital  resumed,  he  told  me  he  was  having  his  sputum  ex 
amined  for  traces  of  tuberculosis,  for  he  was  thoroughly 
alarmed  at  the  obstinacy  of  the  racking  cough  and  soreness 
in  his  chest.  With  our  customary  rebound  from  carking 
care,  the  battered  pair  of  us  lost  no  time  making  tentative 
arrangements  for  a  lengthy  sojourn  in  high,  dry  Arizona, 
and  presently  were  all  alive  with  the  details  of  equipment, 
saddles,  clothing,  books — and  work!  The  analysis  of  the 
sputum  brought  to  light  no  evidence  of  active  "T.B.,"  al 
though  a  scar  that  was  located  in  Jack's  bronchial  tissue 
proved  his  own  diagnosis  not  without  foundation. 

"Well,  that  settles  our  Arizona  vacation, "  he  smiled 
over  a  momentary  regret. 

Another  hospital  memory  is  the  day  Jack  said  to  me: 

"I  went  last  night  to  the  Macdonough  to  see  the  De  Mille- 
Belasco  production  of  'The  Woman/  And  take  it  from  me, 
my  dear — that  play  never  would  have  been  written  if  I  had 
not  written 'Theft1 

I  made  him  return  to  his  Ranch  and  his  writing,  while 
I  devoted  every  atom  of  energy  to  recuperating.  In  a  letter 
of  July  24,  he  begs  me  to  ' '  Come  home  right  away ;  I  '11  cut 
out  the  Jinks  this  year  if  you  will  ...  I  read  your  'First 
Thoughts '  and  two  of  your  later  letters,  to  Eliza  last  night ; 
and  both  she  and  I  were  in  tears. ' ' 

But  it  was  more  than  six  weeks  from  June  19,  before  I 
was  fit  to  travel.  It  was  a  deep  obligation  I  put  upon  my 
self,  then  as  ever,  to  take  the  best  care  of  my  health,  that  I 
might  be  "on  deck"  as  much  as  possible.  Jack's  content 
depended  so  vitally  upon  the  brightness  of  his  household. 

The  first  day  that  I  was  able  to  mount  a  docile  horse, 
Jack,  bestriding  his  cheerful  outlaw,  led  me  from  the  idyllic 


194  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

site  on  the  Beauty  Banch  where  we  had  decided  to  build, 
into  the  forested  ravine  of  Asbury  Creek.  To  my  aston 
ished  exclamation  at  sight  of  a  new  bridle  trail  engineered 
upon  its  precipitous  sides,  he  answered : 

"It's  the  'Charmian  Trail,'  Sweetheart,  and  I  saved  it 
for  a  surprise. ' ' 

From  that  time  on,  similar  trail-making  was  continually 
in  progress,  until  there  came  to  be  miles  of  these  green  zig 
zags  within  the  boundaries  of  the  Jack  London  Banch, 
opening  up  breath-taking  views  of  the  surrounding  valleys 
and  mountains. 

In  addition  to  "The  Benefit  of  the  Doubt,"  the  author, 
not  yet  in  humor,  from  his  aggregation  of  past  troubles,  to 
settle  down  to  sustained  effort,  turned  out  some  light 
stuff — an  airplane  story,  "Winged  Blackmail";  "Bunches 
of  Knuckles,"  containing  a  conversation,  with  a  skipper, 
just  as  I  had  heard  it  aboard  the  Snark;  "When  the  World 
Was  Young,"  with  a  double-personality  motif.  Then  he 
penned  what  he  called  a  picture,  or,  rather,  two  successive 
pictures,  entitled  '  '  War, ' '  which  he  deemed  one  of  his  gems ; 
and  the  story  ' '  To  Kill  a  Man, ' '  which  he  also  greatly  liked. 
All  the  foregoing  are  bound  in  '  '  The  Night  Born. ' ' 

"Told  in  the  Drooling  Ward,"  a  delightful  study  of  the 
amiable  egotism  of  a  high-class  idiot's  psychology,  but 
which  Jack  had  difficulty  in  selling,  was  another  1910  pro 
duction;  also  "The  Hobo  and  the  Fairy,"  a  dainty  and 
wholesome  tale,  both  of  which  will  be  found  in  "The  Turtles 
of  Tasman." 

While  in  Oakland,  Jack  had  been  called  upon  by  "Bob" 
Fitzsimmons  and  his  wife,  Julia,  and  for  their  use  in  vaude 
ville  he  wrote  a  rather  inconsequential  skit,  "The  Birth 
Mark,"  which  appears  in  "The  Human  Drift."  The  Fitz- 
simmonses  visited  us  the  first  week  in  September,  and  * '  Bob, ' ' 
to  the  joy  of  Glen  Ellen,  forged  a  mighty  horseshoe  in  the 
village  smithy,  which  adorns  a  door  frame  of  our  cottaga 


A  DAUGHTER  IS  BORN  195 

Next  was  begun  "The  Abysmal  Brute, "  hardly  more 
than  a  long-short  story,  but  subsequently  published  as  a 
novelette — a  cleanly  conceived  bit  of  propaganda  for  the 
purifying  of  the  prize-ring.  Before  the  year  was  out,  Jack 
had  made  a  start  on  a  series  of  a  dozen  Alaskan  yarns, 
which  are  built  around  the  central  figure  of  "Smoke 
Bellew." 

Very  little  public  speaking  was  heard  from  him  that 
year — a  Memorial  Day  address  in  Sonoma,  a  lecture  in  Oak 
land,  and  another,  in  December,  in  the  Auditorium  Annex  at 
Page  and  Fillmore  Streets,  San  Francisco,  in  protest  at  the 
current  murders  of  educators  and  reformers  in  Russia,  in 
Japan,  and,  in  particular,  Spain 's  inexcusable  execution  of 
Francisco  Ferrer. 


CHAPTER  XXXIII 
YACHT  "ROAMER" 

The  End  of  1910 

AT  last,  at  last,  Jack's  search  for  a  suitable  inland  yacht 
ended  in  mid-October,  when  a  friend  discovered  for 
sale  the  thirty-foot  yawl,  Roamer,  once  the  fast  sloop  Iris. 
A  personal  try-out  convinced  us  of  her  eminent  qualifica 
tions,  despite  her  ripe  years  which  were  rumored  to  be  at 
least  forty.  We  schemed  a  better  galley  forward,  installed 
a  little  coal-stove  for  winter  warmth  and  cooking,  and 
had  the  hull  and  rigging  overhauled. 

For  it  was  meant  that  I,  from  my  salt  heredity,  and 
practice  both  before  and  after  marriage,  should  be  Jack's 
true  shipmate.  None  so  keenly  as  I,  perhaps,  can  appreciate 
his  own  words,  written  on  board  the  Roamer  in  Sonoma 
Creek,  the  next  spring: 

"Once  a  sailor,  always  a  sailor.  The  savour  of  the  salt  never 
stales.  The  sailor  never  grows  so  old  that  he  does  not  care  to  go 
back  for  one  more  wrestling  bout  with  wind  and  wave.  I  live 
beyond  sight  of  the  sea.  Yet  I  can  stay  away  from  it  only  so  long. 
After  several  months  have  passed,  I  begin  to  grow  restless.  I  find 
myself  day-dreaming  over  incidents  of  the  last  cruise,  or  wonder 
ing  if  the  striped  bass  are  running  on  Wingo  Slough,  or  eagerly 
reading  the  newspapers  for  reports  of  the  first  northern  flight  of 
ducks.  And  then,  suddenly,  there  is  a  hurried  packing  of  suit 
cases  and  overhauling  of  gear,  and  we  are  off  for  Vallejo  where 
the  little  Roamer  lies,  waiting,  always  waiting,  for  the  skiff  to 
come  alongside,  for  the  lighting  of  the  fire  in  the  galley-stove,  for 
the  pulling  off  of  gaskets,  the  swinging  up  of  the  mainsail,  and  the 
rat-tat-tat  of  the  reef-points,  for  the  heaving  short  and  the  break- 

196 


YACHT  "ROAMEB"  197 

ing  out,  and  for  the  twirling  of  the  wheel  as  she  fills  away  and 
heads  up  Bay  or  down." 

With  Nakata  and  the  cook,  Yamamoto  (an  intellectual 
socialist  later  abstracted  back  to  his  native  islands  by  the 
long  arm  of  the  Mikado),  we  set  sail  on  October  17,  from 
Oakland,  across  the  Bay  of  San  Francisco,  "than  which, " 
to  quote  my  captain,  "no  lustier,  tougher  sheet  of  water 
can  be  found  for  small  boat  sailing/'  for  an  up-river  cruise. 

Two  days  earlier  I  had  found  upon  my  desk  a  fresh,  sky- 
blue  volume  entitled  ' l  Burning  Daylight, ' '  into  which.  Jack 
had  woven  so  much  of  our  daily  blessedness.  This  is  the 
inscription : 

"A  sweet  land,  Mate  Woman,  an  almighty  sweet  land  you  and 
I  have  chosen — our  Valley  of  the  Moon, 

"Your  Own  Man, 

"  Jack  London. " 

My  old,  old  dream  come  true — to  see  with  Jack  this  stage 
of  his  youthful  performances!  He  looked  much  like  his 
piratical  early  self,  I  fancy,  in  blue  dungaree  and  the  time- 
honored  "tain"  pulled  down,  with  a  handful  of  curls,  over 
his  sailor-blue  eyes  that  roved  incessantly  for  changes  and 
found  comparatively  few.  I  had  the  privilege,  at  Vallejo 
near  the  yacht  club,  of  seeing  the  meeting  between  Jack  and 
an  old  crony  or  two — as  Charley  Le  Grant,  so  often  men 
tioned  in  "Tales  of  the  Fish  Patrol";  and  another  time, 
threading  Sonoma  Creek's  delta  of  sloughs  to  the  tuneful 
sound  of  blackbirds'  throats,  into  our  own  valley  within  eye- 
reach  of  our  own  mountain  fastnesses,  to  Jack's  unbounded 
delight  we  came  upon  a  venerable,  rickety  little  French 
Frank  of  Idler  memory,  keeper  of  a  duck-hunting  club 
shack.  Debonair  and  gallant  Frank  still  was,  though  all  his 
jealous  fires  and  furies  had  long  since  been  drawn.  And 
ludicrously  tactful  was  he,  before  "Jack's  lady,"  in  refer 
ences  to  the  wild  '90s  he  and  the  lady's  husband  had  shared 


198  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

in  common.  Having  convinced  him  I  was  no  ogress  his 
tongue  loosened  in  spicy  reminiscence,  abetted  by  a  bottle 
of  red  wine. 

What  a  blissful  passage  it  was,  this  first  Roamer  voy 
age,  only  to  be  surpassed  by  the  second  and  the  third,  and 
so  on.  "Snarking  once  more,"  Jack  named  it;  honeymoon 
ing  upon  the  face  of  the  winding  waters;  fanning  into 
Benicia  to  the  sunset  melody  of  birds  in  the  rushes;  run 
ning  across  that  "  large,  draughty,  variegated  piece  of 
water, "  Suisun  Bay,  where  the  great  scows  we  had  both 
learned  to  respect  came  charging  down,  grain-laden;  pick 
ing  our  way  in  the  "Middle  Ground "  channels,  and  gliding 
close-hauled  into  Black  Diamond  "in  the  fires  of  sunset, 
where  the  Sacramento  and  the  San  Joaquin  tumble  their 
muddy  floods  together"-—  to  port  the  hazy,  Aztec  unreality 
of  the  tawny-rose  Montezuma  Hills  palpitating  in  the  west 
ering  sunlight ;  to  starboard  the  low  brown  banks  with  green 
upstanding  fringes  of  rustling  tules;  all  about  red-sailed 
fishing  boats  homing  for  the  night ;  and  old  Black  Diamond's 
lazy  water-front  and  lazier  streets  sloping  upward  toward 
the  Contra  Costa  Hills;  and,  in  the  morning,  Diablo 
crumpled  against  an  azure  dome. 

Once,  off  a  tree-plumed  island  in  the  pictureful  delta,  a 
gay  "red-light"  barge,  with  its  painted  ladies,  anchored 
within  hailing  distance  of  the  Roamer.  "  I  '11  take  you  aboard 
to-morrow  evening  early,  if  you'd  like,"  Jack  volunteered; 
and  I  was  glad  enough  for  a  new  experience  with  him. 
But  the  next  day  he  was  invited  by  the  principal,  Professor 
Vickers,  to  speak  to  the  school  children  of  the  town  across 
river,  which  he  consented  to  do,  in  a  brief  talk  on  "The 
Call  of  the  Wild";  and  when  we  were  once  more  aboard, 
he  said  soberly: 

"I  guess  we  won't  go  adventuring  next-door  to-night, 
Mate — it  might  offend  the  good  people  ashore  if  they  found 
it  out.  They  wouldn  't  understand  how  you  and  I  go  about 
together.  Also,  there  might  possibly  be  folks  on  the  barge 


YACHT  "ROAMER"  199 

whom  youVe  seen  about  and  who  wouldn't  want  you  to  see 
them  there.  So  we'll  just  give  it  up  and  wait  for  a  better 
chance. ' ' 

I  think  it  was  about  this  time  Jack  illustrated  his  belief 
in  the  innate  goodness  of  even  very  low  unfortunates,  by  tell 
ing  me  how,  when  he  was  a  mere  stripling,  his  pockets  had 
been  rifled  by  one  of  the  women  companions  of  his  associates 
up-river.  "But  do  you  know — she  only  took  exactly  half 
of  what  I  had, ' '  he  said.  l '  I  never  forgot  that.  It  was  bad, 
of  course,  but  it  was  only  half-bad  at  worst,  and  showed  she 
had  some  heart  of  softness  left  in  her  toward  a  mere  boy 
like  me." 

It  was  while  we  lay  off  the  town  of  Antioch,  in  this 
region,  that  Jack  recounted  to  me  the  laughable  story  of 
how  he  and  his  mates  netted  a  score  of  illicit  fishermen ;  but 
that  is  for  all  to  read— " Charley's  Coup,"  in  "The  Fish 
Patrol"  group. 

Together  we  came  to  know  the  rivers  and  serpentine 
sloughs,  with  their  foreign  inhabitants,  as  Jack  had  known 
them  aforetime;  only,  now,  the  dwellers  upon  and  behind 
the  willowed  dykes  had  become  increasingly  foreign.  This 
gave  rise  to  many  "human  drift"  speculations  upon  my 
skipper's  part,  later  used  in  "The  Valley  of  the  Moon." 
I  am  reminded  in  passing,  the  young  hero  and  his  com 
rade  wife  run  across  a  pseudo  Roomer  and  its  master  and 
mate. 

Among  other  features  new  to  Jack,  was  the  growth  of 
the  Japanese-Chinese  village  of  Walnut  Grove.  Here  we 
poked  about  among  tortuous  roofed  streets  lined  with 
gambling  dens,  stores,  geisha  houses  and  tea-shops,  enter 
tained  in  these  latter  by  the  pretty  toy-like  women,  with 
saki,  and  raw  bonita  soaked  in  soyu  sauce,  to  the  debatable 
harmony  of  samisens. 

Jack,  snugly  at  anchor,  his  work  punctually  disposed  of, 
read  intensively  upon  agriculture,  devoured  a  plunder  of 
countless  old  books  he  had  been  collecting  upon  western 


200  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

Plains  migration,  and  laid  deep  and  deeper  foundation  for 
Ranch  development  and  stock-raising.  "I  devoted  two 
solid  years,"  he  has  written,  "to  the  study  of  the  migra 
tions  toward  the  West  of  America,  being  moved  to  it  per 
haps  by  the  fact  that  my  people  came  from  the  Middle 
West." 

Everywhere  he  used  his  eyes,  bent  upon  seeing  what  the 
other  fellow  was  doing  in  the  vast  fields  of  California, 
making  me  the  willing  repository  of  his  plans  as  he  worked 
them  out.  Often,  while  I  shopped  or  walked  or  rowed  in 
the  skiff  for  exercise,  he  drifted  about  the  towns,  meeting 
men,  going  to  their  farms,  inspecting  cattle  and  horses. 
He  bought  a  draft-mare,  June,  a  striking  creature,  black 
and  proud,  who  came  to  live  on  the  Ranch  and  become  the 
mother  of  several  colts. 

Jack  was  living  so  fully — a  life  balanced  with  essential 
interests  and  endeavor  and  simplest  of  amusements.  The 
test,  I  am  sure,  he  undertook  deliberately.  To  him  relaxa 
tion  consisted  not  in  cessation  but  in  change  of  thought 
and  occupation.  The  vessel  all  in  order,  laid  against  a 
river-bank  for  the  night,  he  would  sit,  placidly  smoking 
in  the  blue  dungarees  and  old  tarn,  humped  comfortably 
on  deck,  his  soft-shod  feet  hanging  over  the  rail,  line  over 
board  for  cat-fish  or  black  bass.  Meanwhile  he  would  argue 
for  long  with  Nakata  or  the  cook,  in  all  the  ardent  simplicity 
of  a  sailor  in  the  fo'c's'le,  some  trifling  point — say  relative 
sizes  of  fish  each  had  hooked  the  day  before ;  or  there  would 
be  a  jokingly  heated  disagreement  as  to  the  payment  of  a 
penny  wager  a  week  old;  or  the  three,  stopping  to  catch 
laughing  breath,  feverishly  laid  new  bets  against  the  eve 
ning's  basket.  Jack  was  always  ready  to  chuckle  over  it  all, 
should  I  remind  him  of  his  reversion  to  fo'c's'le  methods. 

To  a  Sacramento  reporter  at  this  time,  Jack  said :  "I  am 
a  Westerner,  despite  my  English  name.  I  realise  that  much 
of  California's  romance  is  passing  away,  and  I  intend  to  see 


YACHT  "ROAMER"  201 

to  it  that  I,  at  least,  shall  preserve  as  much  of  that  romance 
as  is  possible  for  me.  I  am  making  of  'The  Valley  of  the 
Moon7  a  purely  Calif ornian  novel — it  starts  with  Oakland 
and  ends  in  Sonoma." 

He  was  an  unfailing  wonder  to  me,  my  Jack  London — 
my  mentor — his  continuous  cerebration  to  every  impact, 
mental,  physical,  awake,  and  asleep;  always  young,  al 
ways  old,  always  wise,  with  "a  bigness  of  heart  that  kept 
conscience  with  itself";  efficient  dreamer,  harnessed  to  his 
work  for  the  sake  of  Heart's  Desire,  which  included  the 
discharge  of  so  many  responsibilities — penalties  of  pa 
triarchy.  How  vivid  he  rises,  standing  on  his  handsome 
legs  at  the  wheel,  those  robust,  muscle-rounded  shoulders 
leaning  back  upon  a  howling  norther  before  which  we  fled, 
tense,  caution  on  hair-trigger,  uncapturable  thoughts  be 
hind  his  deep,  wide  eyes,  lips  parted,  and  that  great  chest 
expanding  to  breeze  and  effort.  One  man  has  written  me : 
"I  remember  Jack  London  above  all  by  his  beautiful 
chest.  It  was  the  most  beautiful  thing  I  have  ever  seen." 

December  saw  us  home  at  Wake  Robin,  trying  to  come 
abreast  with  work  that  had  piled  up  during  the  cruise. 
" Poor  little  woman!  She  has  to  pay  for  her  fun!"  Jack 
turned  from  his  desk  to  where  I  was  filing  letters  and  notes. 
"But  it's  worth  it!"  Again,  suddenly  wheeling  around, 
"How  good  it  is  to  have  a  satisfying  love.  Mate,  I  love 
you  more  than  I  ever  did  in  my  first  days  of  madness.  It's 
different — but  I  love  you  more."  And  he  had  a  way  of 
blowing  involuntary  kisses  in  the  air  when  I  spoke  to  him. 
How  good  it  all  was !  I  am  reminded  of  Browning's : 

" There's  your  smile! 

Your  hand's  touch!  and  the  long  day  that  brings 
Half -uttered  nothings  of  delight." 

While  we  spent  hours  poring  over  the  Wolf  House  draw 
ings,  twenty  men  were  setting  out  twenty  thousand  addi- 


202  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

tional  eucalyptus.  And  Jack's  funds,  despite  our  bound 
less  plans,  were  sinking  low. 

1  'Well,  I've  got  five  hundred  dollars  in  bank,  and  an 
eight-hundred-dollar  life-insurance  premium  due,"  he  an 
nounced.  " Doesn't  balance  up  very  well,  does  it?  But 
never  fear — *  Smoke  Belle w'  will  pull  us  even  with  the  bills. 
Guess  we'll  accept  that  invitation  from  Felix  Peano  to 
move  into  his  Los  Angeles  house  for  a  month.  It'll  be  a 
nice  winter  change,  and  I  can  forget  my  creditors  easier  at 
a  distance,  while  I'm  slaving  to  pay  them!" 

He  always  referred  to  "Smoke  Bellew"  as  "hack 
work,"  strictly  excluding  the  last  story,  "Love  of  Woman," 
which  he  strove  to  make  one  of  his  best.  The  "hack" 
turned  out  to  be  a  great  favorite  with  the  male  readers  of 
his  average  public.  It  would  seem  that  Jack  London's 
work,  third-best,  or  worse,  could  never  be  bad.  Light  it 
might  sometimes  be,  comparatively  unimportant;  but  it 
was  impossible — reservoir  of  learning,  and  imagination, 
and  emotion  that  he  was — that  he  should  ever  turn  out 
trash. 

The  Cosmopolitan  later  asked  for  a  continuation  of 
"Smoke  Bellew,"  and  the  while  Jack  considered  its  popu 
larity  in  light  of  means  to  keep  up  the  enormous  expense 
of  house-building,  I  suggested  sailing  Smoke  and  Shorty 
into  the  South  Seas  for  a  series  of  adventurings,  for  he  had 
been  longing  again  to  dip  his  pen  into  tropic  colors.  This 
he  considere'd ;  but  all  at  once  he  threw  up  the  whole  thing : 

"I'm  tired  writing  pot-boilers !  I  won't  do  another  one 
unless  I  have  to !"  And  in  March,  the  twelve  off  his  hands, 
he  went  at  the  David  Grief  series,  these  romances,  ' '  crack 
er  jacks,"  Jack  referred  to  them,  being  issued  as  "A  Son 
of  the  Sun." 

So  January,  1911,  was  spent  in  the  Westlake  District 
of  Los  Angeles,  while  "Smoke  Bellew"  went  forward,  and 
chance  visitors  were  regaled  with  readings  from  the  man 
uscript.  We  took  along  our  two  Japanese,  and  had  my 


YACHT  "ROAMER"  203 

Aunt,  now  Mrs.  Edward  B.  Payne,  and  her  husband,  as 
house-guests.  It  was  a  very  jolly  arrangement — we,  ac 
cepting  our  sculptor-friend's  roomy  house,  he,  our  hospi 
tality  of  table  and  service.  Jack's  thirty-fifth  birthday 
was  celebrated  in  this  pleasant  cottage.  Besides  entertain 
ing,  our  amusements  numbered  much  attendance  at  the 
theaters,  swimming  in  the  city's  salt  tanks,  a  captive  bal 
loon  ascension,  canoeing  on  Westlake  hard  by,  feeding 
the  swans  and  reading  aloud,  and  a  run  to  Santa  Catalina 
Island.  On  this  last  excursion  Jack  said  my  Aunt  and 
her  husband  must  go  with  us — she  having  visited  the  big 
island  with  my  own  mother  long  before  I  was  born. 

One  of  my  commissions  while  south  was  to  look  up  a 
suitable  four-in-hand  of  light  horses  for  a  summer  trip  to 
northern  California  and  Oregon.  I  succeeded  in  obtaining 
a  trio,  more  or  less  ill-assorted,  which  was  shipped  home. 
Upon  our  own  return,  Jack  had  up  from  Glen  Ellen  his 
old  friend  "Bill"  Ping — mentioned  in  more  than  one  of  his 
books — to  consult  about  reinforcing  the  Winship  two- 
seated  "cut-under,"  for  the  heavy  going,  and  the  proper 
harness.  Mr.  Ping,  one  of  the  splendid  passing  type  of 
old-time  stage-drivers,  who  in  his  day  had  tooled  his  six  on 
the  Overland  Trail,  was  sent  to  San  Francisco  to  order 
harness;  also  a  whip  with  an  eleven-foot  lash  which  Jack, 
after  a  surprisingly  short  trial,  learned  to  crack  with  a 
brave  report,  but  seldom  used. 

Mr.  Ping  being  busy  with  his  own  affairs,  another  stage 
driver,  of  a  'younger  generation,  was  hired  to  put  the* 
team  in  shape  and  instruct  us  in  the  gentle  art  of  guiding 
its  four  mouths  and  sixteen  wayward  feet.  Jack,  as  al 
ways,  mastered  the  thing  perfectly,  knowing,  move  by 
move,  precisely  how  he  did  it;  while  I,  to  his  laughing, 
almost  mocking  admiration,  "got  the  hang  of  it"  by  way 
of  emulation  and  my  "horse  instinct,"  doing  it  well  one 
day  and  not  so  well  the  next. 


204  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

The  Lily  Maid  was  one  of  our  guests  in  March,  and  Jack 
never  appeared  to  better  advantage  than  in  his  kindness 
to  her,  still  pleasuring  in  her  mantle  of  yellow  English 
hair.  For  her  health  was  but  poorly,  and  when  she  could 
not  come  to  table,  with  Jack's  own  hands  Nakata's  nicely 
appointed  trays  were  carried  to  one  of  the  little  woodsy 
guest-cabins  we  had  built. 

We  had  formulated  a  printed  slip  that  frequently  went 
into  Jack's  correspondence  along  with  socialist  and  agri 
cultural  folders,  reading  as  follows : 

"We  live  in  a  beautiful  part  of  the  country,  about  two  hours 
from  San  Francisco  by  two  routes,  the  Southern  Pacific  and  the 
Northwestern  Pacific. 

"Both  trains  (or  boats  connecting  with  trains)  leave  San  Fran 
cisco  about  8  a.  m. 

"The  p.  m.  Southern  Pacific  train  (boat)  leaves  San  Francisco 
about  4  o'clock. 

"The  p.  m.  Southern  Pacific  train  can  be  connected  with  at 
16th  Street  Station,  Oakland,  also. 

"If  you  come  in  the  afternoon,  it  is  more  convenient  for  us  if 
you  take  the  Southern  Pacific  route,  as  it  arrives  here  in  time  for 
our  supper.  We  usually  ask  our  guests  to  dine  on  the  boat,  if 
they  come  by  the  Northwestern  Pacific. 

"Write  (or  telephone)  in  advance  of  your  coming,  because  we 
are  frequently  away  from  home.  Also,  if  we  are  at  home,  word 
from  you  will  make  it  so  we  can  have  a  rig  at  the  station  to  meet 
you. 

"Be  sure  to  state  by  what  rouiey  and  by  what  train,  you  will 
arrive. 

' '  Our  life  here  is  something  as  follows : 

1 '  We  rise  early,  and  work  in  the  forenoon.  Therefore,  we  do  not 
see  our  guests  until  afternoons  and  evenings.  You  may  breakfast 
from  7  till  9,  and  then  we  all  get  together  for  dinner  at  12:30. 
You  will  find  this  a  good  place  to  work,  if  you  have  work  to  do. 
Or  if  you  prefer  to  play,  there  are  horses,  saddles,  and  rigs.  In 
the  summer  we  have  a  swimming  pool. 

"We  have  not  yet  built  a  house  of  our  own,  and  are  living  in 


YACHT  "ROAMER"  205 

a  small  house  adoining  our  ranch.    So  our  friends  are  put  up  in 
little  cabins  near  by,  to  sleep." 

I  have  come  across  a  verse  by  Foss,  which  so  expresses 
Jack's  deep  heart  of  hospitality  that  I  steal  space  to 
quote : 

"Let  me  live  in  a  house  by  the  side  of  the  road, 

Where  the  race  of  men  goes  by 

The  men  who  are  good  and  the  men  who  are  bad, 

As  good  and  as  bad  as  I. 
I  would  not  sit  in  the  scorner's  seat, 

Or  hurl  the  cynic's  ban 

Let  me  live  in  a  house  by  the  side  of  the  road 
And  be  a  friend  to  man." 

He  was  always  buying  blankets;  never  so  happy  as 
when  all  the  beds  were  full.  His  heart  was  soft,  and  all 
were  treated  alike — friend,  stranger,  of  whatsoever  estate. 
I  remember  the  pleased  look  that  crossed  his  face  when  I 
related  how,  while  I  was  buying  a  riding  suit  in  a  San 
Francisco  shop,  the  fitter  said  to  me : 

"Mrs.  Jack  London? — Oh,  I  heard  something  so  lovely 
about  your  place — that  no  one,  even  when  you  people  are 
not  home,  is  ever  allowed  to  go  away  without  being  en 
tertained!" 

It  was  in  October  Jack  placed  in  my  hands  the  story  of 
his  wayward  flight  across  the  continent,  "The  Road/'  The 
inscription  is  one  of  his  most  generous : 

"Dearest  My  Woman: — 

"Whose  efficient  hands  I  love — the  hands  that  have  worked  for 
me  long  hours  and  many,  swiftly  and  deftly,  and  beautifully  in  the 
making  of  music,  the  hands  that  have  steered  the  Snark  through 
wild  passages  and  rough  seas,  that  do  not  tremble  on  a  trigger, 
that  are  sure  and  strong  on  the  reins  of  a  Thoroughbred  or  of  an 
untamed  Marquesan  stallion ;  the  hands  that  are  sweet  with  love  as 
they  pass  through  my  hair,  firm  with  comradeship  as  they  grip 
mine,  and  that  soothe  as  only  they  of  all  hands  in  the  world  can 
sootne-  "Your  Man  and  Lover," 


206  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

Of  course  many  calls  were  made  upon  Jack's  time  and 
purse.  And  "  purse "  reminds  me  that  he  never  carried 
other  than  the  slender  chamois  gold-dust  sack  that  he  had 
learned  to  use  in  the  Klondike.  He  was  obliged  to  work 
out  circular  letters  to  cover  such  exigencies  as  he  was  un 
able  to  comply  with.  Here  is  an  example  in  a  copy  of  a 
letter  written  to  a  young  writer : 

'  *  In  reply  to  yours  of  recent  date  undated  and  returning  here 
with  your  Manuscript.  First  of  all  let  me  tell  you  that,  as  a  psy 
chologist  and  as  one  who  has  been  through  the  mill,  I  enjoyed  your 
story  for  its  psychology  and  point  of  view.  Honestly  and  frankly, 
I  did  not  enjoy  it  for  its  literary  charm  or  value.  In  the  first 
place,  it  has  little  literary  value  and  practically  no  literary  charm. 
Merely  because  you  have  got  something  to  say  that  may  be  of  inter 
est  to  others  does  not  free  you  from  making  all  due  effort  to  express 
that  something  in  the  best  possible  medium  and  form.  Medium  and 
form  you  have  utterly  neglected. 

1 '  Anent  the  foregoing  paragraph ;  what  is  to  be  expected  of  any 
lad  ot  twenty,  without  practice,  in  knowledge  of  medium  and  form  ? 
Heavens  on  earth,  boy,  it  would  take  you  five  years  to  serve  your 
apprenticeship  and  become  a  skilled  blacksmith.  Will  you  dare 
to  say  that  you  have  spent,  not  five  years,  but  as  much  as  five 
months  of  unimpeachable,  unremitting  toil  in  trying  to  learn  the 
artisan's  tools  of  a  professional  writer  who  can  sell  his  stuff  to  the 
magazines  and  receive  hard  cash  for  same  ?  Of  course  you  cannot ; 
you  have  not  done  it.  And  yet  you  should  be  able  to  reason  on  the 
face  of  it  that  the  only  explanation  for  the  fact  that  successful 
writers  receive  such  large  fortunes  is  because  very  few  who  desire 
to  write  become  successful  writers.  If  it  takes  five  years'  work  to 
become  a  skilled  blacksmith  how  many  years  of  work  intensified 
into  nineteen  hours  a  day,  so  that  one  year  counts  for  five, — 
how  many  years  of  such  work,  studying  medium  and  form,  art 
and  artisanship,  do  you  think  a  man,  with  native  talent  and  some 
thing  to  say,  requires  in  order  to  reach  a  place  in  the  world  of 
letters  where  he  receives  a  thousand  dollars  cash  iron  money  per 
week? 

"I  think  you  get  the  drift  of  the  point  I  am  trying  to  make. 
If  a  fellow  harnesses  himself  to  a  star  of  $1000  a  week  he  has  to 


YACHT  "ROAMER"  207 

work  proportionately  harder  than  if  he  harnesses  himself  to  a 
little  glowworm  of  $20  a  week.  The  only  reason  there  are  more 
successful  blacksmiths  in  the  world  than  successful  writers  is  that 
it  is  much  easier,  and  requires  far  less  hard  work,  to  become  a  suc 
cessful  blacksmith  than  does  it  to  become  a  successful  writer. 

1 '  It  cannot  be  possible  that  you,  at  twenty,  should  have  done  the 
work  at  writing  that  would  merit  you  success  in  writing.  You  have 
not  begun  your  apprenticeship  yet.  The  proof  of  it  is  the  fact 
that  you  dared  to  write  this  manuscript,  * '  A  Journal  of  One  Who  is 
to  Die.'  Had  you  made  any  sort  of  study  of  what  is  published  in 
the  magazines  you  would  have  found  that  your  short  story  was  of 
the  sort  that  never  was  published  in  the  magazines.  If  you  are 
going  to  write  for  success  and  money  you  must  deliver  to  the 
market  marketable  goods.  Your  short  story  is  not  marketable 
goods,  and  had  you  taken  half  a  dozen  evenings  off  and  gone  into  a 
free  reading  room  and  read  all  the  stories  published  in  the  current 
magazines  you  would  have  learned  in  advance  that  your  short 
story  was  not  marketable  goods. 

"There's  only  one  way  to  make  a  beginning, and  that  is  to  begin ; 
and  begin  with  hard  work,  patience,  prepared  for  all  the  disap 
pointments  that  were  Martin  Eden's  before  he  succeeded — which 
were  mine  before  I  succeeded — because  I  merely  appended  to  my 
fictional  character,  Martin  Eden,  my  own  experiences  in  the  writ 
ing  game. 

"Jack  London/' 


The  next  letter  here  appended,  he  used  to  send  out  be 
fore  he  came  to  decide  to  read  every  manuscript  that  came 
his  way,  and  encourage  the  sending  to  him.  He  found  that 
in  refusing  to  avail  of  such  opportunities,  he  was  depriv 
ing  himself  of  just  so  many  chances  to  study  the  wayward 
seed  of  man : 

"  Every  time  a  writer  tells  the  truth  about  a  manuscript  (or 
book),  to  a  friend-author,  he  loses  that  friend,  or  sees  that  friend 
ship  dim  and  fade  away  to  a  ghost  of  what  it  was  formerly. 

"  Every  time  a  writer  tells  the  truth  about  a  manuscript  (or 
book),  to  a  stranger-author,  he  makes  an  enemy. 


208      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

"If  the  writer  loves  his  friend  and  fears  to  lose  him,  he  lies  to 
his  friend. 

"But  what's  the  good  of  straining  himself  to  lie  to  strangers? 

"And,  with  like  insistence,  what's  the  good  of  making  enemies 
anyway  ? 

' '  Furthermore,  a  known  writer  is  overwhelmed  by  requests  from 
strangers  to  read  work  and  pass  judgment  upon  it.  This  is  proper 
ly  the  work  of  a  literary  bureau.  A  writer  is  not  a  literary  bureau. 
If  he  is  foolish  enough  to  become  a  literary  bureau,  he  will  cease 
to  be  a  writer.  He  won't  have  any  time  to  write. 

"Also,  as  a  charitable  literary  bureau,  he  will  receive  no  pay. 
Wherefore  he  will  soon  be  bankrupt,  and  himself  live  upon  the 
charity  of  his  friends  (if  he  has  not  already  made  them  all  enemies 
by  telling  them  the  truth),  while  he  will  behold  his  wife  and  chil 
dren  wend  their  melancholy  way  to  the  poorhouse. 

"Sympathy  for  the  struggling  unknown  is  all  very  well.  It  is 
beautiful — but  there  are  so  many  struggling  unknowns,  some 
thing  like  several  millions  of  them.  And  sympathy  can  be  worked 
too  hard.  Sympathy  begins  at  home.  The  writer  would  far  rather 
allow  the  multitudinous  unknowns  to  remain  unknown,  than  allow 
his  near  and  dear  ones  to  occupy  pauper  pallets  and  potter 's  fields. 

"Sincerely  yours, 

"Jack  London/' 

In  extreme  cases,  I  have  known  him  to  send  out  copies 
of  Richard  Le  Gallienne's  "  Letter  to  an  Unsuccessful  Lit 
erary  Man,"  a  document  that  leaves  little  to  be  said. 

Requests  for  money  usually  found  his  responsive.  He 
used  some  discernment,  however,  declining  to  be  "  touched " 
too  often  by  certain  men  who  took  Mm  more  freely  for 
granted  than  he  liked;  with  some  others,  he  blithely  kissed 
hand  to  his  dollars  when  telling  me  of  his  gifts  and  " loans." 
And 

"Oh,  well,  Mate — money's  only  good  for  what  it  can 
buy.  It  buys  me  happiness  to  buy  happiness  for  others. 
Don't  hoard  money.  You  can't  take  it  with  you  when  you 
go  into  the  dark ' J — that  was  a  concept  he  had  inculcated  for 
all  time  into  the  rapidly  simplifying  philosophy  that  had 


YACHT  "KOAMER"  209 

followed  his  "  opening  of  the  books. "  The  disadvantageous, 
soul-belittling  influence  of  poverty  had  been  practically 
banished  for  the  span  of  his  existence  on  this  competitive 
planet.  I  smile  as  I  handle  the  cancelled  checks  of  many 
dates,  to  hear  that  husky,  half -apologe tic :  "They've  all 
dreamed  their  dream.  Who  am  I  not  to  help,  now  that  I 
can.  And  these  have  realized  their  dream  only  a  little 
less,  after  all,  than  the  rest  of  mankind.  .  .  .  But  it  does 
give  me  joy,"  with  a  smile  into  my  eyes,  "when  what  my 
money  does  for  others  receives  some  little  appreciation  of 
the  pleasure  or  comfort  it  buys!" 

In  mid- April  the  Eoamer  all  "ship-shape  and  Bristol 
fashion"  from  Nakata's  deft  brown  hands,  sailed  on  a 
month's  cruise,  while  Eliza  superintended  architect  and 
house  construction,  and  colts  and  calves  increased,  and 
orchard  and  house-vineyard  took  root  in  the  gentle  ter 
raced  amphitheater  behind  the  rising  red-stone  pile  that 
was  to  be  our  castle. 

During  this  absence,  Eliza  saw  her  chance  to  buy,  at 
a  price  her  brother  had  been  waiting  for,  a  section  of 
some  twelve  acres  right  in  the  heart  of  the  big  Kohler 
ranch  already  ours,  on  which  stood  the  buildings  large  and 
small  of  the  old  Kohler  and  Frohling  winery  of  other  days, 
all  in  sad  but  picturesque  disrepair  from  neglect  topped 
with  the  Great  Earthquake. 

This  out-door  life  was  the  best  thing  that  could 
happen  to  Jack,  who  had  been  suffering  from  one  severe 
cold  after  another,  coupled  with  repeated  sties  on  his 
eyelids,  and  much  nerve-rack  from  his  teeth — this  last,  of 
course,  being  nothing  unusual.  I  marvel  to  think  of  his 
eternal  patience  with  pain;  probably  he  was  never,  for 
years  at  a  time,  free  from  pain  or  at  least  discomfort. 
And  there  was  his  ever  present  joy  in  my  own  good  teeth 
— "Woman!"  he  would  cry,  "you  don't  know  how  lucky 
you  are!" 

Before  launching  out  for  the  coast  on  our  northern 


210  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

trek,  Jack  asked  me,  what  I  had  been  anticipating  for 
some  time: 

"Do  you  think  we  could  fix  up  that  old  cottage  on  the 
Kohler,  to  live  in  until  the  Wolf  House  is  done!" 

It  was  a  six-room,  one-story  frame  house  once  occupied 
by  the  heads  of  the  winery,  and  now  in  a  shocking  state. 
Subsequent  Italian  lessees  of  the  vineyard  had  made  a 
veritable  dump  of  it  and  its  old  garden  of  foreign  trees 
and  shrubbery.  I  was  dubious  enough  to  reply : 

"Honestly,  I  don't  think  we  can." 

But  my  partner  had,  for  once,  evidently  made  up  his 
mind  before  consulting  me,  and  presently  I  entered  into 
the  spirit  of  making  the  place  as  attractive  as  possible. 
Besides,  it  was,  at  worst,  a  consummation  of  our  mutual 
desire  to  live  in  the  very  center  of  the  Ranch  activities 
now  afoot. 

The  cottage  came  to  be  our  sleeping  and  working  quar 
ters,  including  two  guest-rooms,  while  in  one  side  of  the 
enormous  winery  were  built  others;  workmen's  family 
quarters  being  created  on  the  other,  and  a  new  roof  shingled 
over  all. 

Quite  a  ceremonial  it  was  with  the  Japanese,  getting 
ready  Jack's  bedside  table  for  the  night.  Sharp  pencils 
there  must  be  plenty,  scratch  pads,  big  and  little;  many 
packages  of  '  '  Imperiales, "  and  fine  Korean  brass  ash 
tray;  his  ubiquitous  little  red-velvet  pin-cushion  with  pins 
driven  in  to  their  heads;  files  of  papers  and  magazines 
neatly  arranged  on  a  lower  section  of  the  table,  according 
to  dates,  the  latest  on  top;  a  dish  of  fruit,  or,  lacking  fruit, 
of  some  favorite  dried  fish  or  other  "dainty."  And 
finally,  there  were  no  less  than  three  bottles  of  liquid  of 
one  sort  or  another.  For  Jack  always  maintained  that 
it  was  a  mercy,  with  his  almost  uninterrupted  smoking,  the 
alcohol  he  consumed,  and  certain  sedentary  spells  when 
he  took  little  exercise,  that  he  "breathed  through  the  skin" 
— by  which  he  meant  free  perspiring.  Therefore,  he  drank 


YACHT  "ROAMER"  211 

almost  excessive  quantities  of  this  and  that  favorite  bev 
erage — grapejuice,  buttermilk,  and  endless  draughts  of 
water.  These,  according  to  the  whim,  in  cool  thermos  bot 
tles,  stood  in  an  inviting  row  on  the  bedside  table,  and  were 
always  empty  in  the  morning. 

Papers  and  magazines,  ravished  of  whatever  in  the  way 
of  information  he  wished  to  file  as  notes,  were  flung  upon 
the  floor;  letters,  envelopes,  all  small  matter  that  was 
finished  with,  he  carefully  crumpled  lest  Nakata  or  the 
house-boy  should  put  them  back  where  he  would  have  to 
handle  them  again.  Sometimes,  dropping  off  to  sleep,  cig 
arette  between  his  lips,  he  singed  his  curls,  exploded  a 
celluloid  eyeshade,  or  burned  small  round  holes  in  sheet  or 
pillow.  As  for  pillows,  he  liked  them  large,  three  of  them, 
with  a  very  small  one  for  that  left  elbow  which  supported 
him  so  many,  many  hours. 

This  dwelling  was  the  only  one  of  his  very  own  in  which 
Jack  London  ever  lived — and  in  which  he  continued  to  live 
until  he  died  within  its  old  book-lined  walls.  It  was  into 
this  house  we  moved  upon  our  return  from  the  four-horse 
adventure,  which  began  in  early  June  and  ended  in  early 
September,  1911. 


CHAPTER  XXXIV 

FOUE-HOESE  DEIVING-TEIP ;  NEW  YOEK  CITY 
1911 

FROM  Glen  Ellen  to  the  Coast,  and  north  to  Bandon, 
Oregon,  was  our  route ;  thence  inland  to  Medf ord  and 
Ashland,  and  southward  through  the  interior — fifteen  hun 
dred  miles  altogether.  Jack  wrote  forenoons  before  start 
ing  out,  and  our  average  drive  was  thirty  miles.  "Four 
Horses  and  a  Sailor, "  written  primarily  for  a  Northern 
Counties  promotion  object,  published  in  Sunset  Magazine 
(collected  in  "The  Human  Drift "),  is  based  upon  this 
summer's  journeying,  as  is  also  the  wagon-travel  episode 
in  "The  Valley  of  the  Moon." 

We  did  not  camp.  Before  ever  Jack  London  and  I  came 
to  "hunt  in  pairs"  he  had  had  enough  "roughing"  to  last 
out  his  life,  and  our  migrations  were  invariably  attended 
by  one  or  more  helpers.  Nakata  packed,  put  up  lunches,  on 
hottest  afternoons  hoisted  the  big  brown  sunshade  that 
clamped  to  the  back  of  the  driver's  seat,  kept  our 
"gear"  in  order  and  sometimes  assisted  in  harnessing  the 
antic  four-footed  quartet,  I  typed  Jack's  manuscript  on  a 
small  machine,  and  he  steadily  ground  out  the  wherewithal 
for  our  subsistence  as  well  as  the  big  things  left  doing  at 
home.  Watching  him  in  this  phase,  exhilarated  with  the 
youth  and  beauty  of  the  summer  world  of  out-doors,  I 
caught  myself  thinking  of  him  as  driving  a  team  of  stars ; 
for  he  harnessed  the  very  stars  to  do  his  work — his  lines 
reaching  to  the  stuff  of  which  the  stars  are  made. 

But  sometimes,  as  more  often  on  days  when  I  was  not 

212 


FOUB-HOBSE  DEIVING-TEIP  213 

so  bright  as  usual  (I  drove  little,  finding  my  strength  was 
not  quite  equal  to  the  weight  of  those  long  leathers  in  my 
hands  for  hours  on  end)  furtively  I  watched  Jack's  face; 
and  there  was  that  in  it  I  had  never  seen  before  the  death 
of  our  child.  It  made  more  difference  to  him  than  any  one, 
even  I,  then  realized.  On  the  evenings  of  such  days,  our 
goal  reached,  horses  properly  housed,  and  hotel  or  farm 
accommodations  made  sure,  he  was  most  likely  to  drift  off 
alone  down-street,  looking  for  "  inhibitions ' ' — a  word  he 
worked  a  great  deal  at  the  time — of  man-talk,  new  associa 
tion,  and  an  extra  glass  or  two.  When  he  would  return, 
there  was  a  more  than  common  glisten  in  his  always  lus 
trous  eyes,  a  trifle  of  feverishness  in  the  telling  of  what  he 
had  picked  up  in  the  way  of  local  information  or  backwoods 
lore,  a  super-enthusiasm  about  the  newest  antlers  of  elk 
or  deer  for  which  he  was  bargaining,  or  the  bearskin  so- 
and-so  had  promised  to  bring  for  my  inspection. 

For  a  period  of  two  or  three  years  after  the  baby's  loss, 
which  included  a  second  unlooked-for  disappointment,  my 
health  was  not  of  the  best ;  but  I  was  wary  to  avoid  giving 
any  possible  impression  to  Jack  that  I  linked  my  lack  of 
freshness  in  any  way  with  maternal  misfortunes.  I  had 
early  discovered  that  the  slightest  suggestion  of  such  a 
thing  irritated  him  instantly  and  beyond  sympathy.  He 
was  as  automatically  touchy  about  this  as  he  was  concern 
ing  hysteria.  Not  much  would  he  say,  but  his  few  words 
had  showed  me  that  he  harbored  a  deep-rooted,  resentful 
opinion  that  the  majority  of  womenfolk  held  their  men 
responsible  for  all  the  consequences  of  reproduction ! 

Beside  a  number  of  the  David  Grief  episodes,  Jack  wrote 
among  other  stories  "The  Prodigal  Father, "  and  "By  the 
Turtles  of  Tasman"  (both  in  "The  Turtles  of  Tasman"), 
"The  End  of  the  Story,"  and  "The  Mexican "  (in  "The 
Night  Born"). 

Much  he  enjoyed  the  horses-— their  characters  and  ca- 


214  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

prices:  Prince,  his  sugar-tongue  hanging  out  on  all  occa 
sions,  Prince  the  "  Love-Horse, "  Jack  called  him,  with  his 
laughing  eye  and  friendly  hoof-shake  and  the  pocket-seek 
ing  of  his  mischievous  muzzle ;  Sonoma  Maid,  the  excellent 
and  wise;  Gert  the  irascible  outlaw  who  yet  did  her  work 
and  came  to  bury  all  the  other  three  when  Jack  himself  had 
gone ;  and  Hilda,  variously  dubbed  the  Eabbit,  the  Bat,  the 
Manger-Glutton — Milda,  who  asked  nothing  of  anybody  but 
to  let  her  do  her  work  and  win  to  her  supper  by  the  least 
circuitous  route. 

For  the  sake  of  any  who  would  care  to  follow  in  our 
track,  I  briefly  outline  the  same.  But  first,  there  was  a  trial- 
trip  of  one  week  from  Glen  Ellen  to  Petaluma;  thence  to 
Olima  on  Tamales  Bay ;  Point  Eeyes,  and  the  Light  House, 
Willow  Camp  on  the  coast;  from  there  on  the  wonderful 
coast  drive  and  across  Mt.  Tamalpais'  feet  to  Mill  Valley. 
The  long  uninterrupted  trip  was  as  follows : 

Glen  Ellen  to  Santa  Eosa,  and  Sebastopol  where  one 
sees  Luther  Burbank's  flowering  and  fruiting  fields,  to  Bo 
dega  Corners ;  Duncan's  Mills ;  Cazadero ;  Fort  Eoss,  on  the 
coast,  of  historic  interest ;  Gualala — where  one  may  fish  and 
boat  on  the  river;  Greenwood;  Fort  Bragg;  Hardy;  Usal; 
Moody 's;  Garberville;  thence  along  Eel  Eiver,  where  deer 
come  down  to  drink,  to  Dyerville.  From  this  section  the 
tourist  may  cut  inland  to  the  Hoopah  Indian  Eeservation. 
This  we  did,  by  automobile  and  saddle,  coming  out  down  the 
Trinity  and  Klamath  Eivers  in  a  dugout  with  Indian  ca- 
noemen  to  Eequa  by  the  sea ;  next,  to  Fortuna,  with  fishing 
and  hunting  and  old  Indians  along  the  way;  Eureka;  Trini 
dad;  Kirkpatrick's.  Crescent  City,  in  the  northwest  corner 
of  California,  where  one  gathers  jewels,  agates  of  marvelous 
colorings,  in  the  ocean  sands;  on  to  Smith  Eiver  Corners, 
and  into  Oregon,  to  Colgrove  's  Mountain  Eanch ;  Laurence 's 
on  Pistol  Eiver;  Gold  Beach,  on  Eogue  Eiver;  Port  Orford; 
Langlois ;  then  to  Bandon,  Coos  County,  whence  we  struck 
inland  to  Coquille;  Eock  Creek;  Murray's,  Eoseburg;  Can- 


FOUE-HOESE  DEIVING-TEIP  215 

yonville ;  Wolf  Creek ;  Grant's  Pass ;  Medford,  with  a  motor 
trip  to  that  marvel,  Crater  Lake ;  Ashland ;  down  into  Cali 
fornia  again, — Montague;  Weed;  driving  within  sight  of 
grand  Mt.  Shasta;  Dunsmuir;  Le  Moyne;  Kennett;  Eed- 
ding;  Eed  Bluff;  Orland;  Willows;  Maxwell;  Leesville; 
Lower  Lake;  Middleton;  Calistoga — and  home  to  Glen 
Ellen  by  way  of  the  Petrified  Forest. 

One  sparkling  afternoon  on  the  Bay  of  Eureka,  I  had 
an  opportunity  to  observe  my  husband  in  a  crucial  moment 
of  judgment  and  fearlessness.  What  a  ringing  challenge 
that  man  was  to  the  courage  of  all  (except  the  spiritually 
deaf,  dumb,  and  blind),  who  were  privileged  to  know  him! 
How  seldom  he  ever  reached  into  his  own  vocabulary  for 
the  word  fear!  Burned  into  my  memory  is  something  he 
said  early  in  our  comradeship : 

"I  think  I  am  really  afraid  of  but  thing — being  hit  over 
the  head  from  behind. — Oh,  not  from  fear  of  death — never ! 
But  to  live  with  my  brain  addled — it 's  unthinkable ! ' ' 

It  was  our  pastime,  while  visiting  in  a  luxurious  house 
boat,  to  go  fishing  or  to  sail  down  the  harbor  and,  if  not 
too  rough,  cross  the  bar  and  cruise  a  little  way  toward  the 
blue  Pacific  horizon  that  was  forever  a  receding  Paradise. 
On  this  day,  tacking  up-bay  on  the  satin  swell,  a  big  rakish 
power-launch,  full  speed  ahead,  came  bearing  down  upon 
us.  There  was  plenty  of  room,  and  Jack,  knowing  the  sail 
boat's  traditional  right  of  way,  naturally  kept  on  his 
course,  expecting  to  pass  the  other  to  port.  But  her  pilot 
kept  right  on  for  us,  and  to  avoid  being  sliced  squarely 
amidship,  Jack  in  a  flash  spun  his  wheel  to  starboard,  to 
bring  her  up  into  the  wind,  while  the  other,  who  must 
have  been  dreaming,  suddenly  with  terrified  face  swerved  to 
his  left  and  took  with  him  the  starboard  corner  of  our  stern 
rail. 

It  all  happened  in  the  space  of  three  seconds,  but  there 
remains,  snap,  snap,  one  of  the  sharpest  moving-pictures 
in  my  experience.  At  the  last  least  instant,  with  the  high 


216  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

knife-edge  bow  right  upon  us,  I,  the  first  law  of  existence 
automatically  superseding  any  sentimental  desire  to  be 
cloven  in  twain  even  in  company  with  the  spouse  of  my 
bosom,  had  jumped  just  forward  of  where  the  crash  would 
occur.  Turning  as  instantly  as  I  landed,  ready  to  dive  if 
necessary,  I  took  in  Jack's  incredibly  quick  action  with  the 
wheel,  his  cool,  calm,  fighting  face,  and  heard,  saw,  and  felt 
the  splintering  of  the  rail. 

"You  did  exactly  the  right  thing,''  he  reassured  my 
tentative  inquiry.  '  '  I  had  my  hands  full,  and  did  not  have 
to  worry  about  you.  I  had  to  stay  at  the  wheel  and  do  the 
only  thing  that  could  be  done  to  save  the  sloop.  .  .  .  Some 
day,  though,"  and  he  more  than  once  warned  me  of  this, 
"my  curiosity  in  seeing  the  thing  through  is  going  to  be  my 
finish!"  But  I  always  banked  on  his  mental  and  steel- 
springed  physical  alertness  to  save  himself  just  short  of 
annihilation. 

So  I  rested  fairly  comfortably  upon  his  opinion  that  I 
had  done  "the  right  thing,"  until  one  day  in  his  Bad  Year, 
1913,  when  he,  in  a  dreadful  depth,  brought  up  the  action. 
It  followed  upon  something  I  had  just  done.  We  had  been 
driving  behind  a  wicked  roan  gelding,  of  irreproachable 
breeding,  who  bore  an  evil  reputation  for  running  away 
and  smashing  things — several  on  the  Kanch,  including 
Eliza,  had  at  various  times  been  thrown  out  and  injured. 
The  horse,  this  afternoon,  had  balked,  and  plunged  sidewise, 
cramping  the  buggy  until  the  wheels  cracked.  Unless  I 
could  have  the  reins  in  my  own  hands,  I  preferred  being  in 
Jack's  care  to  any  driver  I  knew — so  expert  had  he  become. 
But  we  were  in  a  tight  pinch,  and  without  warning  I  sprang 
to  the  ground  and  to  the  animal's  head  to  straighten  him 
out.  It  was  wrong,  I  admit,  and  mortifying  to  the  driver. 
I  should  have  stayed  beside  him  and  "seen  it  through,"  as 
I  had  before  and  many  times  afterward.  It  was  the  cap 
stone  to  a  series  of  vexations  to  Jack,  ending  in  one  of  his 
superb  "disgusts"  with  the  universe  of  which  I  was  an 


FOUR-HORSE  DRIVING-TRIP  217 

important  part;  and  lie  brought  up  the  Eureka  incident. 

' i  But  I  know  I  am  not  a  coward, ' '  I  remonstrated  to  an 
accusation  he  had  not  voiced  but  which  smoldered  in  his 
purple  eyes.  "And  you  know  it,  too,  you!  IVe  nerves, 
but  never  cowardice !" 

Jack's  retractions  and  apologies,  generous  if  rare,  were 
among  the  sweetest  of  the  silken  ties  that  bound  us  forever. 
And,  looking  back  over  it  all,  the  two  utterances  of  his  that 
now  mean  the  most  to  me  are  his  early  "You  are  more  kin 
to  me  than  any  one  I  have  ever  known, "  and  this  next, 
apropos  of  I  know  not  what,  in  the  last  conversation  we 
were  ever  to  hold — suddenly,  as  if  from  a  full  heart: 
"Thank  God,  you  are  not  afraid  of  anything! " 

Once  more,  on  September  6,  we  took  up  the  round  at 
home — replete  with  all  that  love,  keen  interest  in  life,  work, 
and  friends  could  bring.  Jack  began  the  day  with  a  few 
moments  in  the  garden: 

"Gorgeous,  tropic  flowers!"  he  would  murmur  delight 
edly  over  the  flaunting  goldfish,  their  long  tails  waving  like 
lazy  veils  in  the  sunny  water  of  the  pool,  its  fountain  bowl 
an  old  Indian  stone  mortar.  "And  how  I  love  the  all-night 
drip  and  plash  of  your  tiny  fountain ! ' ' 

He  cared  less  for  flowers  in  general  than  most  men  do, 
or  are  willing  to  own.  His  was  joy  in  a  single  bloom.  If 
he  was  caught  momentarily  by  a  mass  of  blossoms,  it  would 
be  for  a  definite  idea  connected  with  it — perhaps  that  it  was 
in  my  arms,  and  gave  me  pleasure ;  or  that  it  enhanced  me 
in  some  way.  I  can  see  him  at  his  desk  near  a  doorway, 
writing,  interrupted  by  the  flame  of  my  basketful  of  poppies 
or  rosies  crossing  his  vision,  coloring  the  sunlight.  And 
the  glance  would  rest,  and  dwell,  and  soften — his  deep-gray, 
wide  eyes  full  of  the  love  that  was  my  wonder  and  glory 
and  guerdon. 

Everything  was  in  full  swing  on  the  Ranch,  and  guests ' 
voices  were  in  the  air. 


218  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

"This  is  what  I  like,"  Jack  would  pause  in  a  dictation 
to  me  at  the  typewriter.  '  '  While  we  are  together,  carrying 
on  our  work,  they  can  do  whatever  they  want.  Look — I 
love  the  rail  out  there  under  the  oak,  with  our  horses  tied, 
saddled  and  waiting.  And  there  go  two  lovers  on  horse 
back  for  the  trails ;  and  a  married  pair  for  a  hike.  Others 
are  playing  cards  in  the  living  room,  where  I  shall  join 
them  as  soon  as  this  letter  is  finished.  .  .  And  if  you  don't 
mind,  Mate,"  his  eyes  begging  the  favor,  "you  take  the 
crowd  that's  coming  for  dinner,  over  the  Wolf  House  trail, 
because  I  have  just  got  to  get  even  with  George  for  the  wal 
loping  he  gave  me  at  pedro  last  night! — Listen  to  those 
girls  chattering  up  in  the  fig-tree — and  who 's  practising  on 
the  piano?  Mate,  do  you  really  know  how  I  love  it  all!" 
To  this  day,  as  a  friend  said,  the  house  "still  breathes  of 
the  sweetness  of  you  two  toward  each  other." 

Some  notes  for  future  work,  made  about  this  time,  il 
lustrate  how  simple  was  his  initial  preparation: 

"Series  of  Stories. 

"Why  not  write  a  superb  short  story  from  each  of  a  number 
of  diverse  places,  and  collect  in  book-form  under  some  suitable  title 
that  conveys  the  idea ' from  all  the  world. '  ?  '  The  Purple  Sea'  might 
make  a  good  title. ' ' 

"Novel. 

"Why  not  a  series  of  past  and  future  novels?  For  No.  1,  I 
could  use  'Before  Adam;'  No.  2,  'Christ  Novel;'  No.  3,  'The  Mid 
dle  Ages;'  No.  4,  some  great  proletarian-bourgeoise  conflict  story 
of  the  present;  No.  5, 1  could  use  'The  Iron  Heel;'  No.  6,  'The  Far 
Future,'  the  perfected  and  perishing  human  race." 

"Farthest  Distant. 

"Radium  engines,  etc.,  for  energy, — See  Atoms  and  Evolution, 
in  Saleeby's  'The  Cycle  of  Life.' 

"Collision  of  dark  body  from  out  of  space  (not  large),  one- 
tenth  size  of  sun.  And  earth  learns  of  coming  by  perturbations  of 
outer  planet.  Then  rush  the  earth  away  from  the  sun. 


FOUR-HORSE  DRIVING-TRIP  219 

"When  earth  travels  through  space,  all  must  be  inclosed;  and 
they  must  use  stored  heat  of  some  sort.  The  oceans  freeze,  etc.  A 
great  preparation.  See  Direction  of  Motion  chapter  by  Herbert 
Spencer.  The  initial  momentum  they  have.  The  momentum  in  a 
straight  line  that  is  altered  to  a  curve  around  the  sun  by  the  pole 
of  the  sun.  Nullify  the  pole  of  the  sun,  select  the  right  moment, 
and  sail  off  into  space  to  reach  nearest  neighbor  sun.  They  make 
some  mistakes  the  first  time.  Something  goes  wrong  with  the  ma 
chinery,  and  they  dash  around  the  second  sun  like  a  comet  and 
return  to  the  old  sun.  They  figure  it  out  on  the  way,  do  not  check 
at  old  sun,  and  like  a  comet  return  to  new  sun,  where  they  suc 
ceed  in  checking." 

The  material  for  the  Christ  novel  above  referred  to 
Jack  had  been  compiling  for  years;  but  in  the  Christ  epi 
sode  of  "The  Star  Rover "  he  concentrated  his  long-sought 
data.  When  he  read  me,  aboard  the  Roomer,  that  chapter 
of  "  The  Star  Rover, "  I  asked  him  what  of  the  Christ  novel. 
"This  will  suffice, "  he  said.  "I  shall  not  do  the  longer 
work. ' ' 

Jesus  Christ  and  Abraham  Lincoln  were  names  of  praise 
upon  his  lips.  Tolstoy  said  of  Lincoln  that  be  was  a  Christ 
in  miniature.  Jack  London:  "The  two  men  I  reverence 
most  are  Christ  and  Lincoln,"  and  spoke  of  them  with  shin 
ing,  worshipful  eyes.  And  Stephen  French  sends  me  the 
following  from  a  letter  Jack  wrote  him:  "I  don't  know 
whether  Jesus  Christ  was  a  myth  or  not;  but  taking  him 
just  as  I  find  him,  just  as  I  read  him,  I  have  two  heroes — 
one  is  Jesus  Christ,  the  other  Abraham  Lincoln." 

Our  main  meal  was  at  12 :30.  This  hour  better  suited 
our  work  and  Ranch  plans  generally.  At  twelve  the  mail- 
sack — a  substantial  leather  one  bought  before  we  sailed  on 
the  Snark — arrived  at  the  back  porcb,  and  Nakata  brought 
it  to  me  to  sort  tbe  contents.  In  the  half-hour  before  din 
ner,  Jack  had  glanced  over  the  daily  paper,  read  his  letters, 
indicated  replies  on  some  of  them  for  my  guidance,  and 


220  THE  BOOK  OP  JACK  LONDON 

laid  the  more  important  ones  in  their  wire  tray,  one  of 
many  such  nested  on  a  small  table  beside  the  Oregon  myrtle 
rolltop  desk  where  he  transacted  business.  I  always  en 
deavored  to  have  his  ten  pages  of  hand-written  manuscript 
transcribed — an  average  of  two  and  a  half  typewritten  let 
ter-size  sheets — before  the  second  gong  (an  ancient  concave 
disk  of  Korean  brass)  belled  the  fifteen-minute  call  to  table. 
Jack  implored  me  to  be  on  time  to  the  minute's  tick,  and 
attend  to  seating  the  guests,  so  that  he  might  work  to  the 
last  moment. 

In  many  minds,  I  am  sure,  still  lives  the  vision  of  the 
hale,  big-hearted  man  of  God's  out-of-doors,  the  beardless 
patriarch,  his  curls  rumpled,  like  as  not  the  green  visor 
unremoved,  pattering  with  that  quick,  light  step  along  the 
narrow  vine-shaded  porch,  through  the  screened  doorway 
and  the  length  of  the  tapa-brown  room  to  his  seat  in  the 
solid  red  koa  chair  at  the  head  of  the  table.  "Here  comes  a 
real  man ! ' '  was  the  prevailing  sentiment. 

How  he  doted  upon  that  board  with  its  long  double-row 
of  friendly  faces  turned  in  greeting,  ever  ready  with  an 
other  plate  and  portion!  It  was  his  ideal — carried  from 
old  days  with  the  Strunskys*.  "In  Jack's  house,"  one 
writes  me,  "I  met  the  most  interesting  people  of  my  life 
and  of  the  world."  And  perhaps,  while  we  fell  to  our  por 
tions,  before  his  own  was  tasted  he  would  read  aloud  news 
paper  items  or  newly  received  letters ;  or  he  might  launch 
out  in  a  fine  rage  of  his  eternal  enthusiasm,  upon  some 
theme  that  claimed  him,  or  strike  into  argument,  whipped 
hot  out  of  his  seething  brain  and  heart.  Always  there  was 
in  him  the  potent  urge  to  gather  all  about  him  into  knowl 
edge  of  whatever  claimed  his  attention.  Years  only  added 
to  his  capacity  to  function  in  every  potentiality.  There 
were  no  numb  or  inactive  surfaces  in  his  make-up,  men 
tally,  physically.  He  reached  in  all  directions,  to  play,  to 
work,  to  thought,  to  sensation.  His  face,  smiling,  cracked 
with  thought-wrinkles,  weather-wrinkles,  laughter-wrinkles. 


FOUE-HOESE  DEIVING-TEIP  221 

At  no  time  did  he  have  more  than  a  few  gray  hairs ;  and  his 
hands,  to  his  pride,  were  very  firm,  showing  no  dilated  ar 
teries.  "One  is  as  young  as  one's  arteries, "  he  was  fond 
of  saying.  How  he  would  pluck  at  the  air  with  those  young 
hands,  in  unconscious  pantomime  groping  for  illustration 
for  the  means  that  no  man  born  of  woman  has  ever  been 
able  to  command  by  which  to  express  a  complete  concept. 

Many  were  more  impressed  by  his  eyes  than  any  other 
feature  or  characteristic.  "All  steel  and  dew,"  one  man 
wrote  of  them.  "All  sweetness  and  hidden  ferocity  .  .  . 
as  though  they  masked  profound  and  terrible  secrets  .  .  . 
eyes  common  enough,  mayhap,  when  the  world  was  young. 
.  .  .  Alert,  as  though  to  him  life  were  a  constant  battle 
field." 

They  were  eyes  that  look  into  one,  and  through  and  be 
yond — as  if  what  they  saw  on  the  surface,  in  one 's  own,  led 
his  into  the  deeps  behind,  into  the  brain,  conscious  and  un 
conscious  and  far  behind  again  into  the  intelligence  of  the 
race  down  through  all  the  drift  of  the  human.  Gray, 
or  iris-blue,  they  were  when  mild,  the  large  pupils  giving 
them  a  splendid,  brilliant  darkness;  but  let  him  be  angry, 
instantly  they  went  cold,  metallic,  the  enormous  pupils  nar 
rowing  to  bitter  points. 

He  had  a  way,  sometimes,  in  common  with  his  sister,  of 
apparently  not  listening  while  his  eyes  looked  through  one, 
patently  seeing  beyond.  "You  haven't  heard  a  word!" 
I  would  remonstrate.  "Oh,  yes,  I  have,"  he  would  return, 
and  repeat  a  sentence  or  two.  "That  doesn't  prove  any 
thing,"  I  would  challenge.  "No,  my  dear,  I  will  give  you 
your  whole  argument, "  and  he  would  disprove  my  assertion. 

Another  likeness  of  Jack's  to  Eliza  was  expressed  by  a 
woman  who  had  heard  her  speak  in  public:  "When  others 
get  up  and  talk,  we  listen  to  what  they  say;  when  you  get 
up  and  talk,  we  do  what  you  say!" 

How  his  "living  language"  of  colloquialisms  and  slang 
pierces  time  when  we  call  up  the  arguments  that  flew  about 


222  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

the  table  like  missiles  in  a  game!    "Come  on,  now — let's 
tell  sad  stories  of  the  deaths  of  kings ! — Go  to  it ;  the  day 
is  young,  and  we're  a  long  time  dead!"    "Oh,  it's  only  my 
shorthand, ' '  he  would  mourn,  cutting  short  to  a  conclusion, 
speaking  to  blank  faces,  perhaps.    Or,  when  he  had  perhaps 
let  himself  go  on  some  subject  near  his  heart:    "You  miss 
me — you  miss  me  totally,"  in  distressed  tone  to  a  solemn 
egotist  who  had  dared  his  logic ;  or,  "  There  you  go — trying 
to  pass  the  buck;  now  stick  to  the  point."    Or,  "Ah — ah — 
but  you've  missed  the  factors.  Connotations,  man,  factors !" 
Then,  "Still  well,  but  not  so  well."    Parsimonious  was  a 
word  he  enjoyed  for  a  time :  " I 'm  parsimonious ! "  he  would 
cry  in  a  discussion,  "You'll  have  to  show  me — I  don't  be 
lieve  anything  till  I'm  shown.    I'm  parsimonious!"    "But 
to  get  back :    As  I  was  saying  when  I  was  so  rudely  inter 
rupted,"  with  a  twinkle;  "I'm  afraid  I  was  always  an  ex 
tremist;  so  don't  mind  my  violence."    And  suddenly,  in  the 
face  of  non-understanding:   "I'm  boring  you?"    "Piffle!" 
he  would  exclaim,  full-tilt ;  and  irascibly, ' '  Silly !    You  mean 
to  say,  then  .  .  .  ?"     Showing  up  the  muddlement  of  a 
wrathful  and  impotent  opponent.    "  No  ?    Then  what  do  you 
mean  to  say?    We  must  agree  upon  a  working  vocabulary 
for  a  basis."    "What  do  I  think  about  so  and  so?    Well, 
if  anybody  should  .drive  up  in  a  hack  and  ask  me,  I'd 
say  ..."     When  something  was  well  said  or  done,  he 
might  praise,  "Fine  and  dandy!"  or  "Booful,  my  dear!" 
But  always  he  hewed  to  the  core  of  the  truth  of  things,  and 
his  meanings  were  clear  to  any  who  would  clearly  listen. 
Some  poet  has  expressed  my  own  sentiment : 

"...  well  I  love  to  see 

That  gracious  smile  light  up  your  face,  and  hear 
Your  wonderful  words,  that  all  mean  verily 
The  thing  they  seem  to  mean." 

Once  Jack  wrote  me :  '  *  Kemember,  dear,  not  only  in  being 
true  to  myself  am  I  true  to  you,  but  before  I  knew  you  I  was 


FOUR-HOESE  DEIVING-TEIP  223 

true  to  myself.  I  have  always  been  true  to  myself.  This 
is  my  highest  concept  of  right  conduct.  It  is  my  measure 
of  right  conduct. " 

One  prejudiced  person,  who  rather  against  his  will  had 
been  brought  by  a  mutual  acquaintance,  had  this  to  say: 

"That  friend  of  yours,  Jack  London,  is  all  and  more 
than  you  said.  He  made  me  love  him  even  when  I  quar 
reled  with  him.  Why,  he  is  a  marvel — I  never  saw  his 
like." 

Another  remembered  Jack,  the  comrade-man,  arm 
around  the  shoulder  of  a  friend: 

"At  times  he  was  funnily  boyish,  then  in  a  flash  splen 
didly  exalted,  pouring  forth  in  his  glad  way  his  knowledge 
of  life,  his  love  of  life,  his  sympathy  with  life,  his  creative 
force,  his  open-minded  embrace  of  the  most  vital  in  life; 
he,  life  itself,  impregnated  by  ripeness  of  thought  and  feel 
ing  most  unusual  for  his  years. ' '  And  still  again :  ' l  What 
a  warmth  there  was  about  this  dear  fellow!  Sunshine  fol 
lowed  him  everywhere.  .  .  .  Even  in  his  harshest  moments, 
his  fine,  open  smile  would  burst  forth.  Never  have  I  seen 
such  faith,  resultant  of  research  and  understanding,  cou 
pled  with  such  doubt  of  the  purely  dreamy  optimistic  or 
the  unproven." 

To  the  youngsters  of  his  race,  entranced  with  his  genu 
ineness  and  utter  lack  of  swank,  "He  was  a  prince !"  And 
one  associate  honored  him  with  this:  "Jack  London  was 
a  great  man ;  but  his  friends  loved  him  just  the  same. ' y 

So  much  for  his  own  countrymen ;  and  how  I  wish  the 
English,  in  greater  numbers,  could  have  known  him  per 
sonally.  One,  who  had  and  appreciated  that  privilege, 
said:  "I  had  to  come  to  his  own  land  to  hear  a  word  in 
his  disfavor — though  I  will  say  it  came  not  from  any  who 
knew  him  at  first  hand. ' ' 

One  illuminating  little  flare  of  Jack's  burns  up  in  mem 
ory.  Some  one  at  table  used  the  contraction  "  Frisco, " 


224  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

and  a  very  young  miss  rushed  headlong  into  trouble  with 
her  host:  "Oh,  don't  say  Frisco!  Say  San  Francisco!" 

Jack  landed  full  wroth  into  the  breach : 

"Let  Frisco  alone,  you!  We  love  the  western  tang  of 
it,  we  oldsters  who  knew  her  by  that  name  before  you  were 
dry  behind  the  ears! — Frisco,  Frisco  .  .  ."  he  rolled  it 
sweetly  on  his  tongue.  And  mingled  in  the  fiber  of  his 
tone  were  scorn  and  pity  for  the  greenness  of  her  who 
jeered  at  what  seemed  to  her  the  common  crudity  of  a 
sobriquet  the  very  glorious  roughness  of  which  symbol 
ized  what  the  old  town  had  stood  for  of  romance  in  the 
days  Jack  London  had  known,  so  dear  to  all  who  knew  it 
then.  He  would  seldom  go  far  out  of  his  way  to  pronounce 
correctly  a  foreign  word:  "You  know  what  I  mean,  don't 
you? — that's  the  main  thing !" 

Despite  that  Jack  London  was  an  excellent  subject,  and 
was  widely  photographed,  many  have  written  to  know  of 
his  appearance  and  proportions.  Among  some  forgotten 
souvenirs  I  have  come  upon  a  typewritten  record,  made  up 
at  Jack's  suggestion,  of  our  comparative  measurements. 
His  are  appended: 

JACK 

Height 5  ft.  9  in. 

Above  knee 15i^>  in. 

Below  knee 12^  in. 

Calf 14  in. 

Ankle 8%  in. 

Wrist 61/2  in. 

Forearm 11  in. 

Biceps  (relaxed) 12  in. 

Biceps  (tensed) 13  in. 

Neck :  .14%  in. 

Chest 40  in. 

Waist 36  in. 

Size  of  Hat 7%  in. 

Size  of  Shoe . .  .  Number  7 


B 

I* 


E*  . 


II 


N 

K  < 
O  P 
CUB 


FOUR-HORSE  DRIVING-TRIP  225 

Near  the  end  of  the  midday  meal,  Nakata  would  lay  be 
side  my  plate  a  note-pad  and  pencil,  upon  which  it  was  my 
daily  task  to  figure  the  horses,  saddles,  bridles,  and  riding 
costumes  of  transient  guests  from  two  to  a  dozen — and,  in 
season,  as  many  swimming-suits  beside.  Or,  the  four-in- 
hand  would  be  wanted,  and  in  his  wide  stiff-rim  Stetson, 
white  soft  shirt  and  khaki  trousers,  Jack,  noisy,  gay,  swing 
ing  the  jingling,  fleeing  leaders  hither  and  thither  in  his 
blossoming  valley,  would  be  seen  pointing  out  the  beauties 
of  it  to  a  packed  wagonful  of  rapt,  if  sometimes  apprehen 
sive,  men  and  women  and  children,  enlarging  to  them  upon 
the  character  and  idiosyncracies  of  each  horse.  A  neigh 
boring  editor  saw  him — "Big,  boyish,  warm-hearted  .  .  . 
Over  our  hills  with  the  sunshine  of  his  favorite  vale  shining 
upon  his  head  he  often  rode  or  drove  in  carefree  style  the 
beautiful  horses  he  loved.  His  manner  cordial,  his  greeting 
cheery,  it  was  little  wonder  he  became  the  pal  of  all,  and  no 
matter  how  big  his  triumphs  he  was  never  the  conceited 
genius  but  always  the  genial  friend  and  natural  neighbor. ' ' 

As  Jack  himself  put  it:  "I'm  so  afraid  of  slighting 
somebody  I  ought  to  recognize  in  the  neighborhood,  that 
I'm  going  to  speak  in  good  old  country  fashion  to  every 
body  I  meet ! ' '  which  became  his  habit ;  and  many  the  prim 
provincial  lady,  loitering  in  her  dusty  old  buggy  under  the 
hot  midsummer  sky,  who  sat  up  suddenly  from  daydreams 
to  stare,  first,  at  the  abounding  good  cheer  of  the  robust 
young  driver  avalanching  by,  and  tipping  a  gray  cow 
boy  brim  so  respectfully;  and,  next,  to  melt  into  smiles 
under  the  warmth  of  the  neighborly  apparition. 

That  year  the  Sierra  Club  made  its  first  pilgrimage  to 
the  Jack  London  Ranch.  Also  it  marked  the  employment, 
of  Jack's  first  paroled  man  from  the  State  Penitentiary  at 
San  Quentin.  Jack's  principles  in  general,  and  in  particu 
lar  his  own  Buffalo  experience,  had  for  years  made  him 
eager  to  give  a  chance  to  those  unfortunate  enough  to  have 


226  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

come  inside  the  forbidding  gray  battlements  so  often  seen 
from  the  deck  of  the  Roamer.  For  years,  on  our  place, 
these  men  came  and  went.  As  for  his  opinion  of  amelior 
ating  prison  conditions,  he  wrote : 

"I  have  little  faith  in  prison  reform.  Prisons  are 
merely  a  symptom.  When  you  try  to  reform  them,  you 
try  to  reform  symptoms.  The  disease  remains. " 

One  sojourner  with  us,  as  houseguest,  was  Ed.  Morrell, 
whose  astounding  experience,  growing  out  of  his  connec 
tion  with  the  notorious  outlaws,  Sontag  and  Evans,  was 
the  motif  for  Jack's  subsequent  novel,  "The  Star  Rover. " 
I  well  recall  Jack,  fairly  frothing  over  the  straitjacket 
scars  Morrell  had  been  revealing,  lurching  in,  spilling  over 
with  emotion,  to  tell  me  what  he  had  seen. 

While  the  foregoing  busy  season  went  forward,  the  Bay 
newspapers  had  Jack  attending  the  birthday  party,  In  Mon 
terey  County,  of  some  one's  lapdog — "Fluffy  Ruffles  V9 

Sometimes  guiding  our  friends  on  the  steep  trails,  or 
riding  hand  in  hand  to  look  over  progress  at  the  Wolf 
House,  we  talked  of  the  big  schooner  that  some  day  we 
should  rig  out  and  start  for  another  round-the-world  voy 
age.  There  was  never  any  hint  of  dullness  in  the  present 
nor  fear  of  future  boredom. 

Four  books  were  issued  in  1911 :  "When  God  Laughs, " 
"Adventure,"  "The  Cruise  of  the  Snark,"  and  "South  Sea 
Tales."  Of  the  inscriptions  I  choose  two — this,  in  the 
spring,  from  "When  God  Laughs": 

"My  Own  Dear  Woman: 

"The  years  come,  and  the  years  go,  our  friends  come  and  go, 
some  few  of  them  stick — and  you  and  I  stick  better  than  any  or 
all" 

From  "South  Sea  Tales,"  in  the  fall: 

"Dearest  Mate- Woman: 

"And  can  we  say,  after  all  these  years,  that  we  have  ever  been 
happier  than  we  are  happy  right  now!" 


FOUR-HORSE  DRIVING-TRIP  227 

There  was  much  to  do — every  waking  moment.  The 
thing  was,  to  find  time  to  sleep;  yet  we  regarded  that  as 
rather  a  leisurely  year — perhaps  because  we  did  not  go 
very  far  from  home.  My  diary  records:  "Mate  works  in 
the  evenings.  He  is  so  very  busy.  It  makes  my  own  head 
tired  when  I  think  of  all  his  head  must  keep  track  of." 

It  was  in  the  late  afternoon  of  October  10,  1911,  that 
Jack  returned  on  horseback  from  Glen  Ellen,  two  miles 
from  the  house,  and  announced  with  solemnity  that  he  had 
just  cast  his  vote  for  "Woman  Suffrage.  "Woman  Suf 
frage,"  he  expounded,  "means  Prohibition;  and  that  is 
why  I  voted  for  it.  The  normal  woman,"  he  went  on,  "has 
no  liking  for  alcohol ;  through  all  the  ages  John  Barleycorn 
has  hurt  her  heart.  All  that  will  be  changed  when  she  wins 
political  power." 

This  scene  stands  forever  in  the  Foreword  of  "John 
Barleycorn,"  the  book  in  which  Jack  London  focused  his 
sensations  and  viewpoints  in  regard  to  alcohol. 

Some  time  after  its  publication,  he  received  the  letter 
below : 

"  Oakland,  California,  May  27th,  1916. 
"Mr.  Jack  London, 

"Glen  Ellen,  Calif. 
"Dear  Friend: 

"I  take  this  opportunity  in  forwarding  these  few  lines  remind 
ing  you  of  the  coincidences  which  happened  in  Our  Half  Day  along 
the  Oakland  estuary. 

"I  understand  that  my  name  Spider  Healy,  along  with  Soup 
Kennedy,  Boche  Pierrati,  Joe  Goose  and  M.  J.  Hynold  has  been 
heralded  all  over  these  United  States  and  the  rest  of  the  world  and 
that  you  have  realized  an  abundance  of  wealth  both  in  moving 
pictures  and  a  book  known  as  John  Barleycorn.  If  you  were  to 
visit  the  old  haunts  of  the  oyster  pirates  of  the  present  time  you 
would  find  in  a  very  decrepid  condition.  Financially  and  otherwise 
Soup  Kennedy  who  you  described  in  your  book  as  a  worthy  op 
ponent  of  Scratch  Nelson  has  been  following  the  sea  as  a  means  of 
livelyhood.  But  as  time  and  tide  wait  for  no  man  he  has  over- 


228  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

looked  an  opportunity  of  acquiring  a  vast  wad.  Many  times  we 
have  sat  upon  the  deck  listening  to  the  strains  of  the  chanties,  hoping 
that  a  time  would  arrive  when  we  would  again  get  together  either 
to  talk  of  the  old  times  or  to  make  arrangements  to  go  salmon  fish 
ing  to  Alaska  or  sealing  to  the  Bonin  Islands. 

"I  was  surprised  on  more  than  one  occasion  to  have  individuals 
acost  me  on  the  street  asking  if  my  name  was  the  Spider  Healy  of 
John  Barleycorn  fame.  On  answering  in  the  affirmative  I  was  re 
minded  that  my  part  of  your  John  Barleycorn  was  one  of  most 
importance. 

' '  There  is  not  a  day  passes  that  tourists  from  the  far  east  and 
all  parts  of  the  United  States  do  not  stand  and  gaze  with  astonish 
ment  at  the  old  relics  of  the  old  St.  Louis  House  and  the  first  and 
last  chance  saloon  where  you  have  gained  renown  and  fortune. 
A  few  nights  ago  at  the  foot  of  Franklin  Street  at  which  place 
you  weighed  anchor  many  a  time  I  sat  and  listened  to  the  strains 
of  some  of  the  Chanties  of  which  you  are  quite  familiar.  Again  it 
brought  to  mind  the  old  day  when  you  and  I  heard  the  same 
songs.  (Lorenze  was  no  sailor)  (Blow  the  man  down)  (Whisky  for 
my  Johnies)  (we'll  pay  Pattie  Doyle  for  his  boots)  and  (Bound 
for  the  Bio  Grande  and  sailin  Home  to  merry  England  town.) 

' 'In  conclusion  the  main  object  of  calling  your  attention  to 
these  facts  is  to  let  you  know  the  conditions  that  now  exist  with 
the  pirates  whose  names  have  made  you  fames,  in  that  book  & 
plan  known  as  John  Barleycorn.  Johnie  Hynold  and  Joe  Yiergue 
are  the  only  ones  who  accumulated  a  wad  and  I  dare  say  buried 
it  like  a  dog  did  his  bone.  To  get  a  quarter  from  a  turnip,  is 
like  extracting  the  same  from  these  men. 

"Johnie  Hynold  is  estimated  according  to  Bradstreet's  to  be 
worth  about  one  hundred  and  sixty  thousand  dollars  and  Joe 
Viergue  as  you  know  as  accumulating  his  fortune  on  our  hard  earned 
coin. 

'  '  I  belief  that  Soup  Kennedy  has  seen  his  last  days  as  a  seaman. 
Strength  gone,  health  gone  and  eyesight  failing  what  was  once  a 
big  rough  rovish  stalwart  fellow  has  dwindled  to  a  mere  nothing. 

' '  I  was  talking  to  him  a  few  days  ago  and  in  asking  him  what 
the  matter  was,  he  told  me  that  a  saw  bones  told  him  that  his  life 
was  going  to  nicker  out  in  a  short  time.  He  stated  that  it  was  not 
necessary  for  the  old  boy  to  put  him  on.  On  more  than  one  occasion 


FOUR-HORSE  DRIVING-TRIP  229 

I  felt  my  heart  slip  a  cog  or  two.  Now  you  know  Jack  when  your 
heart  slips  a  cog  or  two  there  is  no  possible  way  to  replace  it  by  good 
smooth  running  gear.  Soup  is  very  much  enthused  when  I  told  him 
that  I  was  about  to  ask  you  for  a  small  bit  of  assistance.  I  do  not 
know  what  you  are  estimated  to  be  by  Bradstreet  or  Wall  Street 
but  I  certainly  would  be  ever  grateful  if  you  generously  would  be 
aroused  to  such  an  extent  that  it  would  be  possible  for  you  to  loosen 
up  and  forward  at  once  a  check  with  a  substantial  amount  to  pull 
Soup  and  myself  out  of  a  hole. 

"Now  if  you  want  to  be  a  good  fellow  and  have  your  name 
heralded  as  such  along  the  water  front  where  your  childhood  days 
were  spent  with  the  rest  of  the  pirates  you  will  please  grant  this 
request  at  once. 

"Your  old  pals, 

"Soup  Kennedy, 

"p.  S.— We  are  living  at  present  416-2nd  St.  Oakland,  Cal.,  and 
will  await  your  earliest  convenience,  a  reply,  also  that  substantial 
check,  Joe  Goose  is  on  his  last  legs. 

"  Spider. " 

As  Jack  did  not  invariably  let  his  left  hand  know  what 
his  right  hand  did,  I  do  not  know  what  his  reply,  if  any, 
was  to  the  foregoing. 

Jack's  aversion  to  spending  Christmas  in  the  prescribed 
way  caused  many  an  outing  to  begin  on  the  twenty-fourth 
of  December.  And  so,  that  date  in  1911  saw  Mr.  Kisich 
opening  a  bottle  of  champagne  in  his  " Saddle  Rock,"  to 
speed  us  on  the  way  east.  We  slept  aboard  the  Western 
Pacific  Limited  that  night,  headed  for  New  York  City.  En 
route  on  the  Denver  and  Rio  Grande  we  stopped  over  at 
Salt  Lake  City  to  foregather  with  my  friends  the  Harry 
Culmers ;  and  among  other  trips,  Jack  and  I  went  on  a  little 
pilgrimage  to  Fort  Douglas,  where  in  the  '60  's  my  father, 
Captain  Willard  Kittredge,  had  served  under  General  Con 
nor,  his  duties  including  those  of  Provost  Marshal  of  the 
beautiful,  romantic  city. 


230  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

The  New  Year  was  celebrated  in  New  York.  ' '  And  this 
time,"  Jack  assured  me,  " we'll  go  home  by  way  of  Cape 
Horn." 

Almost  any  passage  in  our  companionship  1  contem 
plate  with  more  pleasure  than  that  1912  winter  in 
1  Gotham. ' '  The  trip  had  been  one  of  our  happiest ;  but,  once 
off  the  train,  and  his  enthusiasm  expressed  over  the  new 
Pennsylvania  Station,  it  was  the  old  story.  The  city  reached 
into  him  and  plucked  to  light  the  least  admirable  of  his 
qualities.  Out  of  the  wholesome  blisses  of  his  western  life, 
he  plunged  into  a  condition  that  negated  his  accustomed 
personality.  Nine-tenths  of  the  two  months '  time  we  made 
our  headquarters  in  Morningside  Park  East,  he  was  not 
his  usual  self.  During  the  other  tenth,  cropping  up  in  un 
expected  moments,  the  manifestation  of  his  dearest  self 
and  his  love  were  never  warmer  nor  more  illuminating. 

Coincident  with  our  arrival,  he  warned  that  he  was  going 
to  invite  one  last,  thoroughgoing  bout  with  alcohol,  and  that 
when  he  should  sail  on  the  Cape  Horn  voyage,  it  was  to  be 
"Good-by,  forever,  to  John  Barleycorn."  To  me,  the 
promised  end  was  worth  the  threatened  means;  and  my 
comprehension  and  acceptance  of  his  intention  were  ap 
preciated.  But  I  could  not  fail  to  regret  that  new  friends 
should  know  and  base  their  judgment  of  Jack  London  upon 
this  unfortunate  phenomenon  of  him. 

In  that  Jack  London,  drunken,  was  not  as  other  drunken 
men,  the  majority  of  those  who  contacted  with  him  during 
a  period  of  what  he  termed  his  "  white  logic"  deemed  they 
knew  the  true,  sober  Jack  London  in  all  his  panoply  of 
normal  brilliance.  Never,  in  all  my  years  with  him,  did  I 
see  him  tipsy.  An  old  acquaintance  of  Jack's,  asked  con 
cerning  this  phase  of  the  author  of  "John  Barleycorn," 
laughed:  "I  have  known  him  more  or  less  intimately  for 
ten  years,  and  I  have  never  seen  him  intoxicated."  And 
Jack  himself:  "I  was  never  interested  enough  in  cocktails 


FOUE-HOESE  DEIVING-TEIP  231 

to  know  how  they  were  made."  Except  in  rare  cases  when 
a  single  drink  acutely  poisoned  his  stomach,  upon  him  the 
effect  of  alcoholic  stimulus  was  to  render  preternaturally 
active  an  already  superactive  mind.  Keen,  hair-splitting 
in  controversy,  reckless  of  mind  and  body,  sweeping  all 
before  him,  passionately  intolerant  of  man  or  woman  who 
challenged  his  way — all  this  and  more  was  he  in  his  "  white 
logic"  extreme.  This  unnatural  state,  combined  with  the 
depression  New  York  invariably  put  upon  him,  was  dan 
gerous.  And  there  was  wanting — and  how  were  others  to 
know? — the  splendid,  healthy  charm  of  the  big  man  he  was, 
the  finer  potency  of  his  moral  integrities,  the  square  truth 
of  his  fundamental  faiths  and  their  observance.  Much,  at 
the  time,  I  sensed,  watching  the  calendar  day  by  day  as  the 
day  of  release  from  New  York  approached;  more,  beyond 
guesswork,  afterward  came  to  light.  But  I  knew  my  man, 
and,  content  or  not,  waited,  remembering  that  I  had  never 
yet  waited  in  vain  to  welcome  back  the  sane  and  lovable 
boy.  More  and  more  deeply  am  I  convinced  that  it  is 
not  the  irks  of  the  wayside  that  should  count  in  one 's  valu 
ing  of  events  or  individuals.  I  knew  my  man.  I  could  only 
wish  that  some  others  had  had  such  vision  for  crises  like 
these  in  Jack  London's  contact  with  his  kind. 

"New  York  is  one  wild  maelstrom,"  he  saw  it  that  year. 
"Eome  in  its  wildest  days  could  not  compare  with  this 
city.  Here,  making  an  impression  is  more  important  than 
making  good. ' '  And  I  take  an  item  from  the  N.  Y.  Evening 
World,  which  throws  light  upon  another  observation  of 
Jack's: 

"In  this  great  city  woman  does  not  care  for  woman  friends. 
She  will  boldly  tell  you  so.  She  does  not  trust  them.  .  .  .  The  aver 
age  so-called  wise  woman  of  New  York  City  will  not  introduce  her 
attractive  men  friends  to  her  women  friends. ' ' 

There  comes  to  me,  across  the  years,  something  for 
many  years  forgotten.  He  had  said  to  me,  very  early  in 
our  marriage : 


232  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

i  '  Don't  forget  what  I  have  been  and  been  through. 
There  may,  mark,  I  only  say  may  come  times  when  the 
temptation  to  'drift'— for  an  hour,  or  a  day,  will  stick  up 
its  head;  and  I  may  follow.  I  have  drifted  all  my  life — 
curiosity,  that  burning  desire  to  know.  Yet,  I  have  knocked 

the  edge  off  my  curiosity  about  a  lot  of  things.    Still " 

in  his  honesty  he  anticipated  the  possibility. 

Once,  after  the  baby  had  'been  lost  to  him,  I  asked 
innocently,  " Where  been?"  To  which,  with  a  teasing  look, 
he  replied,  "Oh,  pirootmg,  my  dear — I'll  tell  you,  maybe, 
when  we're  in  our  seventies!"  But  long  afterward,  when 
some  association  of  ideas  called  for  it,  there  would  leak 
out,  among  other  hinted  adventurings,  the  story  of  a  hard- 
fought  game  of  cards  in  a  water-front  public  house  in  San 
Francisco,  or  a  weird  experience  of  one  sort  or  another  with 
some  nameless  waif  he  had  elected  to  trot  around  with  for 
an  afternoon  or  evening. 

Eeferring  to  John  Barleycorn  and  his  mental  condition 
in  New  York,  I  once  asked  him  if  it  would  not  have  been 
better  for  me  to  withdraw  from  him  at  such  times — even 
to  letting  him  go  alone:  "No,"  he  reassured.  "You  did 
exactly  as  you  should  have  done.  If  you  had  left  me,  I 
don't  know  what  I  should  have  done." 

Another  chance  affair  he  divulged  when  in  reminiscent 
mood.  One  afternoon,  in  the  Forum  Cigar  store  in  Oak 
land,  he  ran  across  a  man  who  knew  an  old  Klondike  ac 
quaintance,  whose  address  he  gave.  Some  mistake  was 
made,  and  Jack  found  himself  in  a  curious  little  pocket. 
A  door,  answering  his  ring,  let  him  into  a  hall  at  the  foot 
of  a  narrow  stairway.  From  the  upper  end  a  handsome, 
flashy  woman  called  down: 

"Hello,  you  Jack  London!" 

"How  do  you  know  I  am  Jack  London?"  he  countered 
in  his  surprise  at  her  expectant  tone,  and  mounted  several 
steps  to  have  a  look  at  her. 

The  woman  peered  down  at  him,  then  drew  back,  fear 


FOUR-HORSE  DRIVING-TRIP  233 

and  puzzlement  in  every  line  and  movement.  To  cut  the 
tale  short,  it  appeared  that  the  lady  had  been  keeping  com 
pany  for  some  time  with  a  man  who  called  himself  Jack 
London,  whom  she  had  quite  believed  was  the  simon-pure 
article  enjoying  a  double  life.  She  assured  Jack  that  he 
bore  a  strong  resemblance  to  her  friend. 

Once,  that  winter  of  1912  in  New  York,  he  had  said  with 
smoldering  eyes:  "If  you've  got  the  nerve,  I'll  take  you 
drifting!  It  would  be  great  fun.  One  lark  would  be  to 
board  a  subway,  any  subway,  and  run  to  the  very  end  of 
the  line ;  get  off,  start  in  any  direction,  and  ring  the  bell  of 
the  first  house  that  took  our  fancy.  Say  'Good  evening,7 
cordially,  to  whoever  came  to  the  door,  and  get  inside,  talk 
ing  a  blue  streak,  acting  as  if  we  were  old  friends.  Of 
course,  they'd  think  we  were  crazy,  and  the  more  familiar 
we  got,  the  more  excited  they.  The  police  would  be  sum 
moned "  he  broke  off  in  a  giggle  that  was  the  only  fa 
miliar  thing  in  his  manner,  " — but  what's  the  use?"  he 
finished  gloomily.  "You  wouldn't  be  game  for  a  mess  like 
that!  but  think  of  the  fun!"  and  he  regarded  me  quizzi 
cally,  as  if  calculating  the  experiment  he  was  making  upon 
the  stuff  of  my  character.  I  flatly  declined  to  be  lured  by 
this  or  kindred  prospects.  He  knew  I  would  go  with  him 
anywhere  and  back  again,  but  not  when  he  was  in  this  ex 
treme,  unnormal  state.  So  ho  resumed  his  "pirooting" — 
I  really  do  not  know  how  to  spell  the  word,  and  the  diction 
ary  is  no  help. 

A  wonder  it  is  that  nothing  happened  to  him.  Settling 
in  a  barber's  chair  one  day,  he  noticed  the  man  was  shak 
ing  as  with  violent  ague : 

' '  What 's  the  idea  1 "  he  inquired  kindly.  ' '  Made  a  night 
of  it?" 

"Several,"  the  barber  chattered  under  his  breath,  glanc 
ing  warily  around.  "Don't  know  how  I'm  g-g-going  to 
shave  you  or  anybody." 


234  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

And  Jack,  with  the  razor  making  oblique  stabs  against 
his  windpipe,  sensing  the  wielder  was  in  danger  of  losing 
his  job,  told  him  to  "go  through  the  motions,  anyway," 
and  he  would  make  no  fuss. 

"But,  man,"  I  expostulated,  "you  might  have  had  your 
throat  cut!" 

"Oh,  well,"  he  said,  "he  was  in  an  awful  state,  and  I 
couldn't  get  up  and  go  out  and  give  him  away  to  the  whole 
shop.  I  didn't  enjoy  it  a  bit,  I  assure  you!" 

I  have  speculated  if  he  ever  thought  to  liken  his  act  to 
that  of  Eobert  Louis  Stevenson,  who  is  reputed  to  have  ac 
cepted  and  smoked  a  half-consumed  cigarette  from  a  leper, 
rather  than  cause  affront.  Jack  had  often  brought  up 
that  story  to  illustrate  his  conception  of  gameness. 

He  would  not  take  care  of  himself.  Coughing  badly, 
week  in  and  week  out,  he  declined  to  wear  other  than  thin 
"low-cuts"  with  sheerest  of  silk  socks.  "Don't  bother — 
I'll  be  all  right,"  was  all  that  I,  or  the  small  fatherly 
Nakata,  could  elicit. 

The  New  York  World,  during  the  Equitable  Life  fire, 
sent  him  a  badge  that  gave  him  the  freedom  of  that  pre 
cinct  of  ice  and  flame;  but  I,  who  should  have  liked  to 
share  this  real  adventure,  was  barred  by  my  sex. 

Dozens  of  plays  we  attended  together;  a  dozen  or  so 
books  Jack  read  aloud  to  me;  and  there  was  a  trip  to 
Schenectady,  where  Frank  Hancock,  whom  we  had  met  in 
New  Orleans,  introduced  us  to  Professor  Charles  P.  Stein- 
metz,  genius  of  the  General  Electric,  and  took  us  through 
the  leviathan  plant ;  for  Jack  was  always  sharp-set  to  study 
the  enormous  achievements  of  the  human  in  harnessing 
force.  At  Schenectady  we  were  guests  of  Dr.  and  Mrs. 
Cyrus  E.  Baker.  In  their  home  Jack  treated  his  soul  to 
an  orgy  of  music,  for  Mrs.  Baker  had  been  on  the  grand 
opera  stage,  and  her  husband  was  a  masterly  accompanist. 
Another  out-of-town  week-end  was  spent  at  Short  Beach, 


FOUR-HORSE  DRIVING-TRIP  235 

Connecticut,  with  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Robert  Wilcox — Ella 
Wheeler — of  our  Jamaica  memories. 

Attending  a  tea  at  the  Liberal  Club  on  January  27,  1912, 
given  in  his  honor,  Jack  was  asked  by  a  socialist  if  he  was 
a  "Direct  Actionist."  Jack  regarded  his  questioner  cau 
tiously  for  a  moment,  then  asked  him  to  define  what  he 
meant  by  the  term.  '  '  One  who  favors  strikes  and  the  like, ' ' 
was  the  definition: 

"Yes,  I  am  a  direct  actionist,  as  you  call  it.  Direct 
Action,  as  I  understand  it,  is  teaching  us  the  true  fighting 
spirit,  which  is  going  to  be  the  greatest  asset  the  people  of 
the  masses  possess  when  the  great  struggle  finally  comes 
between  them  and  their  present  masters.  There  is  a  hard 
time  coming.  We  shall  have  a  big  fight,  but  the  masses  will 
conquer  in  the  end,  because  they  form  the  stronger  and 
more  stable  body.  The  story  of  the  struggle  will  be  written 
in  blood.  The  ruling  classes  will  not  let  go  until  it  is." 

Some  one  asked  him  to  give  his  ideas  on  the  subject  of 
universal  peace.  He  replied  that  there  would  come  a  time 
when  all  human  contention  would  be  settled  amicably  with 
the  aid  of  referees,  but  that  we  must  use  our  fighting  spirit 
to  bring  about  this  condition.  We  must  fight  to  stop  war. 

"What  will  you  do  with  the  fighting  spirit  when  this 
ideal  state  comes  to  pass?"  some  one  asked. 

"Dig  potatoes  with  it!"  Jack  shouted  vehemently. 
"Write  books  with  it,  govern  with  it.  By  turning  this  en 
ergy,  now  wasted  in  building  up  great  armaments  with 
which  to  kill,  into  civilized  channels,  civilization  would 
mean  twice  what  it  does  now." 

Of  writing  on  his  novel,  "The  Valley  of  the  Moon," 
he  did  almost  none;  but  he  transacted  considerable  busi 
ness  with  publishers.  He  had  left  the  Macmillans,  and  con 
tracted  with  Doubleday,  Page  &  Company  for  "A  Son  of 
the  Sun."  The  Century  Company  brought  out  the  next 
four  volumes— "Smoke  Bellew  Tales,"  "The  Night  Born," 
"The  Abysmal  Brute,"  and  "John  Barleycorn."  In  the 


236  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

fall  of  1913,  with  "The  Valley  of  the  Moon,"  Jack  resumed 
relations  with  the  Macmillans,  and  continued  thenceforth 
with  that  house. 

One  writer  whose  company  greatly  illumined  our  so 
journ  in  New  York  was  Michael  Monahan;  and  Jack  and 
Richard  Le  Gallienne  got  together  most  pleasantly.  Sev 
eral  afternoons  were  set  aside  for  receiving  callers.  Alex 
ander  Berkman  came  to  see  Jack,  for  the  purpose  of  en 
listing  his  aid  in  the  matter  of  a  Preface  to  his  "Prison 
Memoirs  of  an  Anarchist."  The  two  " scrapped"  amiably, 
and  Jack  wrote  the  Preface,  but,  in  the  nature  of  their  radi 
cal  differences,  it  was  repudiated  by  Berkman  and  his  as 
sociate  anarchists.  I  shall  include  the  Preface  in  some 
future  collection,  together  with  Jack's  comments  upon 
Berkman 's  refusal,  written  several  years  thereafter. 
"Alexander  Berkman,"  I  quote  from  the  latter  document, 
"could  not  see  his  way  to  using  my  introduction,  and  got 
some  one  else  to  write  a  more  sympathetic  one  for  him. 
Also,  socially,  comradely,  he  has  forgotten  my  existence 
ever  since." 

Late  that  year,  asked  by  an  Oakland  Tribime  man  if, 
with  his  interest  in  the  economic  aspect  of  the  world,  he 
did  not  find  New  York  the  best  place  for  his  observations, 
Jack  cried: 

"Great  Scott,  no,  no!  I  must  have  the  open,  the  big 
open.  No  big  city  for  me,  and  above  all  not  New  York.  I 
think  it  is  the  cocksure  feeling  of  superiority  which  the  peo 
ple  of  the  metropolis  feel  over  the  rest  of  the  country  that 
makes  me  rage — when  it  does  not  remind  me  of  something 
near  home.  Next  to  my  Eanch  is  an  institution  for  the 
feebleminded.  When  some  of  the  inmates  who  are  not  as 
feeble  minded  as  the  rest,  are  through  with  their  chores, 
one  or  another  of  them  will  shake  his  or  her  head  and  say 
with  great  thankfulness:  "Well,  heaven  he  praised,  I'm 
not  feebleminded." 

"And  yet,"  he  concluded  benevolently,  "I  feel  that 


FOUR-HORSE  DRIVING-TRIP  237 

way  about  New  Yorkers  only  when  I  see  or  think  of  them 
collectively.  When  I  meet  them  one  by  one  it  is  another 
story. ' ' 

This  reminds  one  of  what  R.  L.  S.  said,  as  remembered 
by  Robert  S.  Lysaght,  to  a  similar  question ; 

"It  is  all  the  better  for  a  man's  work,  if  he  wants  it 
to  be  good  and  not  merely  popular.  Human  nature  is  al 
ways  the  same,  and  you  see  and  understand  it  better  when 
you  are  standing  outside  the  crowd/' 


CHAPTER  XXXV 

CAPE  HOBN   VOYAGE 
1912 

FOUR  of  us  sailed  around  Cape  Horn,  from  Baltimore 
to  Seattle — Jack  London,  wife,  Nakata,  and  an  engag 
ing  fox  terrier  puppy,  three  months  foolish,  who  was  des 
tined  to  play  an  important  part  in  Jack's  household  till 
the  end  of  life.  "  Possum "  we  named  him,  in  memory  of 
a  rough-coated  little  Irish  gentleman  we  had  known  in  the 
South  Seas — brother  to  dear  Peggy  of  the  Snar~k,  immortal 
in  our  hearts.  The  fox  Possum  figures  in ' l  The  Valley  of  the 
Moon,"  which  was  resumed  and  completed  on  the  Cape 
Horn  voyage,  and  also  in  "The  Mutiny  of  the  Elsinore," 
this  book  being  an  out-growth  of  that  experience  on  a  wind 
jammer.  Besides  "The  Valley  of  the  Moon,"  Jack  made 
copious  notes  for  "John  Barleycorn,"  and  wrote  a  short 
sea  story,  "The  Tar  Pot,"  published  serially  as  "The  Cap 
tain  of  the  Susan  Drew,"  and  not  yet  collected  in  book 
form. 

It  was  a  very  subdued,  much-himself  Jack  London  who 
stopped  over  with  me  in  Philadelphia  en  route  to  Baltimore 
to  take  ship.  And  Philadelphia  unconsciously  perpetrated 
a  classic  joke  on  itself:  without  knowing,  it  entertained  for 
three  days  at  the  leading  hotel  "America's  most  advertised 
writer."  It  seemed  so  strange  that  I  had  no  accustomed 
duties  to  perform  in  the  way  of  answering  telephone  calls 
from  reporters  in  the  lobby!  For  not  one  ever  discovered 
the  sprawling  signature  in  the  hotel  register.  The  silence 
of  the  brotherhood  of  scribes  was  certainly  not  due  to  any 

238 


CAPE  HORN  VOYAGE  239 

boycott  on  Jack  London,  for  they  had  hitherto  appeared 
unanimously  kind  to  his  work. 

The  morning  of  our  sailing  from  Baltimore,  on  March  2, 
1912,  as  I  sat  alone  writing  my  farewell  letters  home,  the 
door  opened  and  I  heard  Jack  in  colloquy  with  Nakata.  I 
caught  the  words,  in  a  giggly  whisper,  "Wait  till  Mrs. 
London  sees  me!"  Something  told  me  what  I  should  be 
hold,  and  I  refrained  from  raising  my  eyes  until  obliged 
to  do  so.  He  had  long  threatened  to  do  it,  but  until  then 
had  withheld  the  act  because  of  my  pleading.  His  head  was 
as  naked  as  a  billiard  ball.  I  looked  him  over  with  assumed 
poise,  and  resumed  my  writing.  Jack  tittered.  I  said 
*  *  Yes,  I  see ;  but  it  isn '  t  funny. ' '  Jack  tittered  again.  < '  But 
it  isn't  funny,"  I  repeated,  beginning  to  lose  hold  of  my 
self.  "Oh,  now,  don't  feel  badly,  Mate  Woman,"  he  began, 
for  my  voice  was  becoming  unsteady,  I  know.  "It  is  such 
a  good  rest  for  my  head — I  often  did  it  in  the  old  days,  at 
sea  and  around." 

It  was  the  last  straw  in  a  hard  winter,  to  mix  a  meta 
phor.  I  wept  uncontrolledly  for  nearly  three  hours.  There 
is  a  photograph  of  the  pair  of  us,  taken  that  day  be 
side  Edgar  Allen  Poe  's  monument,  in  which  a  very  heavily 
coated  Jack  London,  hat  pulled  down  most  unbecomingly 
over  a  chill  scalp,  stands  with  a  woman  who  tries  to  hide 
swollen  eyes  and  forlorn  mouth  in  a  new  set  of  very 
handsome  red  fox.  Jack  looked  apprehensive  when  I  re 
marked  that  my  own  head  needed  a  rest,  and  started  for 
the  scissors.  But  I  only  sheared  off  eight  inches.  I  did' 
not  again  look  directly  at  Jack  until  there  was  at  least 
half  an  inch  of  hair  on  his  head. 

The  Dingo,  3000  tons  net  registered,  seventeen  years 
old,  had  been  the  first  steel  ship  launched  by  the  famous 
Sewalls  of  Bath,  Maine.  She  was  technically  a  four-masted 
barque.  Jack  chose  the  Dingo  over  a  much  newer  clipper  for 
the  reason  that  she  carried  skysails — fast  becoming  obso- 


240  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

lete.  "And  how  I'd  like  to  take  you  around  the  Horn  on  a 
ship  with  moonsails!"  he  lamented  the  impossibility. 

Captain  Omar  Chapman,  of  Newcastle,  Maine,  was  one 
of  the  fast  disappearing  type  of  lean  New  England  aristo 
crat,  who  always  presented  himself  on  deck  immaculately 
attired,  his  especial  hobbies  fine  hats  and  cravats.  His 
quiet  Yankee  humor  extended  to  these  little  foibles  and  a 
frank  contempt  for  the  common  clay  of  modern  deep-water 
sailors.  The  calm  kingliness  of  his  character  was  in  cod 
contrast  to  that  of  the  Mate,  Fred  Mortimer,  hot-hearted, 
determined,  all-around  efficient  driver  of  a  crew  that  was 
composed,  with  a  few  exceptions  well  along  in  years,  of 
landlubbers  and  weaklings. 

Imagine  our  surprise  to  learn  that  Captain  Warren,  of 
the  Snark,  had  applied  for  the  berth  of  second  officer,  al 
though  in  ignorance  of  our  presence  in  the  ship.  As  sur 
prising  was  the  fact  that  the  man  who  was  accepted  bore 
the  same  name! 

We  paid  $1000.00  for  our  passage,  and,  since  such  ves 
sels  carry  no  passenger  license,  had  to  sign  on  the  articles, 
Jack  as  third  mate,  myself  as  stewardess,  and  Nakata  as 
cabin-boy.  It  must  have  been  attributable  to  Yankee  thrift 
that,  when  it  became  known  we  traveled  with  a  man,  no 
cabin  boy  was  taken  along.  Therefore  many  duties  aft  fell 
to  our  private  servant,  over  and  above  his  service  to  Jack 
and  me,  and  Nakata  put  up  with  the  gratuitous  injustice 
with  good  grace  rather  than  create  unpleasantness. 

The  Dirigo  stood  out  to  sea  in  an  abating  icy  gale  that 
had  held  her  bound  for  exasperating  weeks.  Eough  and 
bitter  cold  it  was,  but  nothing  mattered  to  me  except  the 
fact  that  land  was  left  behind,  in  prospect  long  months  of 
blissful  sea  life  with  its  cleansing  simplicities. 

In  all  the  one  hundred  and  forty-eight  days,  our  eyes 
rested  on  land  but  once — or  in  one  brief  period  of  two  or 
three  days — literally  land's-end,  the  end  of  the  earth,  the 
island  of  Cape  Horn  itself,  with  the  continuous  mainland 


CAPE  HORN  VOYAGE  241 

and  islands.  Even  Diego  Ramirez,  sinister  finger  of  stone 
to  the  south  of  the  Continent,  became  visible  in  the  war  of 
water  and  cloud. 

"Cape  Horn  on  the  starboard  bow!"  on  May  10,  was 
the  most  exciting  tocsin,  next  to  a  savage  war  conch,  I  had 
ever  awakened  to. 

"Gee — you  folks  are  lucky !"  Mr.  Mortimer  exclaimed, 
as,  wrapped  in  heavy  coats,  we  clung  to  the  poop-rail  and 
actually  gazed  upon  the  Cape.  "I  tell  you,  I've  made  this 
passage  more  times  than  I  can  remember,  and  I  haven't 
laid  eyes  on  that  there  island  since  1882!  The  fog  has 
never  raised. "  And  the  day  before,  conditions  being  favor 
able  for  the  risky  feat,  the  Captain  had  been  able  to  reduce 
time  by  passing  through  the  Straits  of  Lemaire,  instead  of 
going  around  Staten  Island.  It  was  exciting  business, 
made  more  breathless  by  sight  of  a  great  wreck,  standing 
stark  upright  in  her  doom  of  shallow  water  off  the  main 
land. 

Our  farthest  south  was  Lat.  57°  32',  Lon.  67°  28'.  And 
though  we  had  some  little  difficulty  "making  westing"  and 
were  driven  back  time  and  again,  our  traverse  "from  50 
to  50"  was  but  fifteen  days,  which  is  almost  better  than  a 
master  mariner  dare  hope. 

"How  could  you  endure  such  a  life!"  women  a-many 
have  said  to  me.  There  was  no  single  moment  of  weari- 
someness  to  either  Jack  or  me.  Think  of  the  industrious 
working  hours — even  I,  suddenly  inspired  by  one  of  the 
anecdotes  from  Captain  or  officers,  wrote  a  sea  yarn,  i  i  The 
Wheel,"  afterwards  published  at  a  round  price  by  a  news 
paper  syndicate.  He  had  been  much  surprised  and  de 
lighted  when,  without  warning  or  comment,  I  laid  my 
manuscript  with  his  night-reading.  And  after  I  had  bene 
fited  by  suggestions  from  him:  "It's  quite  good  enough 
for  you  to  go  ahead  and  market ! "  he  advised  to  my  aston 
ishment. 

For  at  least  three  hours  daily,  on  deck  in  fine  weather, 


242  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

otherwise  sitting  below  on  his  high  bunk  with  a  bright 
"angle-lamp"  at  either  end,  Jack  read  aloud  while  I  em 
broidered  a  new  supply  of  fine  lingerie.  We  read  every 
thing  from  Chinese  lore  to  Eobert  W.  Chambers.  "And 
for  once, ' '  my  companion  grinned, '  i  I  Ve  time  to  read  Sue  's 
' Wandering  Jew.7  I  never  could  'see'  the  time  for  it 
before." 

Oh,  the  vivifying  salt  air,  and  the  sea-food — good  old 
"salt  horse"  and  beef  tongue,  and  the  cook's  inspired 
concoctions  of  tinned  dainties!  Captain  Chapman  had 
brought  along  a  well-stocked  hencoop  solely  because  there 
was  to  be  a  woman  aboard;  but  after  he  had  been  taken 
mysteriously  ill  the  day  before  sighting  the  Horn,  the 
fresh  eggs  had  been  a  boon.  Indeed,  he  lived  many  weeks 
because  of  the  whites  of  eggs  I  was  able  to  serve  him ;  but 
he  died  two  days  after  arriving  at  Seattle — and  alas,  be 
fore  his  wife  could  come  to  him  from  Maine.  Cancer  of 
the  stomach,  the  doctors  diagnosed.  I  spent  a  whole  night, 
in  the  hotel,  sadly  enough,  but  glad  of  my  detailed  notes, 
writing  Mrs.  Chapman  a  log  of  the  voyage  from  the  day 
her  husband  was  stricken. 

So  placidly  and  promptly  his  old  self  was  Jack  at  sea, 
that  I,  slowly  recuperating  from  acute  nerve-strain,  con 
templated  him  with  the  amazement  women  must  ever  feel 
toward  certain  phases  of  their  menfolk.  My  diary  ex 
claims  in  wonder:  "I  do  believe  the  man  has  utterly  for 
gotten  New  York  and  its  abominations!"  But  later,  when 
I  had  hurt  a  finger,  and  developed  a  "run-around"  that  held 
me  sleepless  through  nights  of  pain,  his  devotion  seemed 
to  carry  a  new  note,  and  there  were  moments  when  I  saw 
float  up  through  the  deeps  of  his  eyes  a  knowledge  of  all 
that  those  weary  eight  weeks  had  meant  to  me. 

The  Master  and  Jack  gathered  fuel  for  everlasting  fun 
at  my  expense.  Two  long  connecting  staterooms  had  been 
fitted  up  for  us,  that  we  might  have  separate  bunks.  It 
was  to  general  systemic  upset  that  I  attributed  an  annoy- 


CAPE  HORN  VOYAGE  243 

ing  attack  of  hives  that  followed  sailing.  With  tin  upon 
tin  of  cream  of  tartar  from  the  ship's  galley  my  offended 
stomach  was  dosed;  I  tried  sleeping  all  over  the  vessel  aft — 
in  the  main  cabin,  and  even  in  the  chart-room,  where  [ 
seemed  to  rest  the  best.  And  the  consumption  of  cream 
of  tartar  and  sympathy  in  the  cabin  went  on  apace.  Then 
a  suspicion  began  to  dawn  in  the  Captain,  which  precipitated 
an  investigation  of  my  freshly  painted  wooden  bunk.  The 
secret  was  out.  All  the  scrubbing  and  painting  and  fumiga 
tion  had  failed  to  dislodge  the  last  of  a  nest  of  the  ubiquitous 
bed-bug  that  a  ship  is  never  able  quite  to  eradicate.  A 
broad  grin  was  evident  from  stem  to  stern  of  the  Dirigo 
the  day  a  young  sailor  had  finally  eradicated  the  pest,  and 
I  never  heard  the  last  of  my  "hives." 

Would  you  pursue  beauty  indescribable,  go  to  sea  on  a 
wind-jammer.  I  know  no  more  exalted  moments  than 
when,  a  hundred  miles  off  the  coast  of  Brazil  I  have  set  my 
face  to  the  four  quarters  of  the  heavens,  upon  which  were 
painted  as  many  astounding  sunsets,  with  a  heavy  moon 
lifting  to  spill  thick  silver  in  a  fading  copper  sea;  or  have 
clung  in  the  eyes  of  her,  the  great  steel  body  of  the  ship 
plunging  enormously  onward  among  the  night-green  rollers 
of  her  moonlit  highway,  her  orderly  forest  of  masts  sway 
ing,  swerving,  to  the  weight  of  full  sails — gargantuan  pearls, 
hard  and  bright,  strung  to  the  loftiest  spars  of  the  golden 
masts,  white-gleaming  in  the  very  witchery  of  moonlight 
that  transfigures  all  their  majesty  into  the  immateriality 
of  a  vision.  Masefield  knows  it  all : 

' '  I  have  heard  the  song  of  the  blossoms  and  the  old  chant  of  the 

sea, 
And  seen  strange  lands  from  under  the  arched  white  sails  of 

ships." 

How  could  I  live  such  a  life  ?  Woe  is  me — how  can  I  live 
without  it ! 

Night  after  night,  fair  weather  or  foul — and  it  was  all 


244  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

of  a  magnificence,  dead  calm  or  great  guns  blowing — I  took 
a  note-book  and  pencil  to  the  poop  hatch,  and  painted,  as 
well  as  I  could  in  words,  the  sunsets  and  their  mirrored 
reflections  on  the  vast  dome.  Bits  of  these  "  sketches " 
are  in  "The  Mutiny  of  the  Elsinore."  On  a  day  I  may 
come  upon  the  rest  among  Jack's  own  notes,  and  drop  an 
hour  from  a  busy  dozen  to  find  my  feet  again  treading  the 
deck  or  the  fore-and-aft  bridge  of  the  Dirigo,  stately  and 
beautiful  moving  house  of  ocean,  now,  along  with  our  old 
friend  the  Tymeric,  at  one  with  the  slime.  For  the  Huns 
got  them  both.  I  would  that  mermen  and  mermaids  could 
people  them  for  ay ! 

For  exercise  we  boxed  lustily,  trained  and  played  with 
the  puppy,  and  climbed  into  the  "top"  of  the  mainmast— 
the  first  foot-hold  of  the  same  above  deck,  reached  by  preca 
rious,  lurching  way  of  the  shrouds  from  the  rail.  In  Jack's 
pocket  was  a  book,  in  mine  my  embroidery.  Here,  remote, 
ecstatic,  above  the  "wrinkled  sea"  and  the  slender  fabric 
of  steel,  we  lived  some  of  our  finest  hours,  enthralled  by 
the  recurrent  miracle  of  unbored  days,  love  ever  regenerate, 
and  contemplation  of  our  unwasted  years. 

Once  around  the  Horn,  Jack  took  to  hooking  albatross, 
catching  quite  a  number.  Some  were  liberated,  but  several 
he  kept.  I  still  have  the  skins— twelve  feet  from  tip  to  tip, 
if  I  remember  aright. 

One  of  his  activities  was  pulling  teeth  for  the  crew — 
to  say  nothing  of  assisting  Possum  to  shed  her  puppy- 
molars  which,  in  lack  of  normal  food  and  bones,  were 
troublesome  in  letting  go.  For  Jack  had  not  forgotten  to 
bring  along  his  Snark  dentistry  case. 

The  first  news  of  an  almost  forgotten  world  in  five 
months  was  of  the  Titanic  disaster,  and,  next,  that  our  old 
acquaintance,  President  Alfaro  of  Ecuador,  and  his  son  (a 
West  Point  man)  had  been  murdered  in  Quito  and  their 
headless  bodies  dragged  through  the  streets. 

And  would  any  one  know  what  Jack  London  thought 


CAPE  HORN  VOYAGE  245 

of  t  '  enduring  such  a  life, ' '  half  a  year  away  from  the  land 
spaces  of  the  world : 

"Mate,"  he  said  in  all  earnestness,  as  the  dear,  gray, 
battered  hull  towed  up  Puget  Sound,  looking  pensively  at 
the  sailors  aloft  making  all  snug, ' '  I  wish  it  had  been  a  year, 
or  years! — You  remember,  don't  you?  how  happy  I  was 
stocking  up  inexhaustible  reading  matter,  in  case  we  got 
driven  back  from  the  Horn  and  had  to  double  the  Cape  of 
Good  Hope,  and  on  around  the  world  that  way!" 

There  had  been  one  shadow  upon  me.  One  evening 
about  three  months  out,  at  table,  the  Mate,  Fred  Mortimer, 
remarked : 

"I  never  drink  on  duty.  I  drink  very  little  anyway; 
just  a  glass  now  and  again  on  shore  with  the  fellows." 
Jack  replied,  to  my  dismay : 

"That  is  what  I  am  now  working  toward.  I  have,  by 
putting  myself,  for  the  first  time  in  my  life,  where  I  am 
absolutely  free  for  months  of  alcohol,  with  alcohol  en 
tirely  purged  from  my  system — in  a  position,  also  for  the 
first  time  in  my  life,  to  review  the  whole  question  of  alcohol 
with  reference  to  myself  and  that  system,  and  my  brain. 
I  have  learned,  to  my  absolute  satisfaction,  that  /  am  not 
an  alcoholic  in  any  sense  of  the  word.  Therefore,  when 
I  am  on  land  again,  I  shall  drink,  as  you  drink,  occa 
sionally,  deliberately,  not  because  I  have  to  have  alcohol 
in  the  economy  of  my  physical  system,  but  because  /  want 
to,  we'll  say  for  social  purposes.  I  never  have  been  so 
happy  in  my  life  concerning  alcohol  with  reference  to  my 
self,  as  I  am  right  now  this  minute.  It  has  never  mastered 
me,  I  now  know;  it  never  shall.  There  is  no  danger  of  it 
mastering  me." 

Although  I  knew  he  was  giving  us  the  honest  content 
of  his  best  conclusions  in  the  matter,  I  also  felt  that  I 
knew  he  would  fail  of  the  perfection  of  such  a  plan.  He 
did.  But  what  counts  in  the  end — is  the  end,  and  near  that 
end  he  drank  but  little. 


246  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

Four  days  in  Seattle  were  spent,  if  the  newspapers 
were  to  be  trusted,  in  a  lavender  satin-lined  suite,  Jack  at 
tired  exquisitely  in  pink  silk  pajamas  and  reveling  in  per 
fumed  ablutions. 

It  was  the  old  Puebla  that  carried  us  down  the  coast. 
There  were  two  reasons  for  this  voyage :  one,  we  were  not 
wearied  of  the  sea;  the  other,  it  was  feasible  for  us  to  have 
Possum  with  us  more  than  would  have  been  allowed  by  rail. 
The  evening  of  August  second  we  sat  in  the  front  row  at 
the  Oakland  Orpheum,  our  seats  ordered  by  wireless  from 
'  '  outside ' '  the  previous  day.  And  it  was  one  of  our  happiest 
homecomings,  as  will  be  seen. 

For,  the  long  voyage  ended,  we  looked  for  another  child 
in  March — a  child  love-beckoned,  to  fill  a  heart's  desire 
once  bereft.  But  owing  solely  to  the  ignorance  in  which  we 
had  been  left  of  certain  conditions  that  should  have  been 
corrected  before  another  birth  was  to  be  thought  of,  a 
second  blighting  disappointment  was  suffered  within  a 
month  of  our  return. 

Jack  was  sadly  cast  down,  though  he  said  little.  But 
his  somber  state  cropped  out  indirectly  in  a  letter  to  me. 
He  was  entertaining  a  houseful  of  guests  who  had  been  with 
us  when  I  was  obliged  to  go  into  hospital  for  a  few  days. 
Some  criticisms  had  been  made  of  his  supporting  a  trio  or 
more  of  his  pet  hobo  philosophers — so  picturesquely  and 
sympathetically  delineated  in  "The  Little  Lady  of  the  Big 
House"  as  "the  seven  sages  of  the  Madrono  Grove. "  The 
title  was  a  reminiscence  of  his  delving  into  Chinese  Legend 
on  the  Dirigo.  He  wrote  me  in  a  strain  that  showed  a  cumu 
lative  discouragement  with  human  things  that  had  led  him 
to  take  agriculture  so  seriously: 

1 '  As  for ,  I  get  more  sheer  pleasure  out  of  an  hour 's  talk 

with  him  than  all  my  inefficient  Italian  laborers  have  ever  given 
me.    He  pays  his  way.    My  God,  the  laborers  never  have  paid  theirs. 

The  Ranch  has  never  lost  much  money  on  X ,  and  Y ,  and 

g 1  and  R ,  and  T ,  and  all  the  rest  of  the  fellows  who've 


CAPE  HORN  VOYAGE  247 

had  a  few  meals  and  beds  out  of  me.  The  Ranch  has  lost  a  hell 
of  a  lot  on  the  weak  sticks  of  cash-per-day  laborers  who  've  battened 
off  of  me  and  on  me.  Don't  forget  that  the  Ranch  is  my  problem. 
This  one  and  that  one  never  helped  me.  It  was  I,  when  I  was  ripe, 
and  when  I  saw  a  flicker  of  intelligence  in  this  one  and  that  one, 
who  proceeded  to  shake  things  down.  What  all  these  various  ones 
have  lost  for  me  in  cash  is  a  thousand  times  more  than  the  price  of 
the  few  meals  and  beds  I've  given  to  my  bums.  And  I  give  these 
paltry  things  of  paltry  value  out  of  my  heart.  I  've  not  much  heart 
throb  left  for  my  fellow  beings.  Shall  I  cut  this  wee  bit  thing  out 
too?" 

Yet  right  near  this  time,  returning  from  a  week's  ab 
sence,  he  brought  home  with  him  a  false  friend  of  his  early 
writing  days,  an  old  beneficiary  who,  for  some  fancied  slight, 
had  kept  away  from  Jack  for  years  and  talked  bitterly 
against  him.  I,  at  sight  of  Jack  with  this  man  in  tow,  was 
inwardly  as  mad  as  a  much  dampened  mother-hen,  although 
it  was  incumbent  upon  me  to  be  courteous  in  my  own  house. 
Jack  had  taken  me  aside  at  first  opportunity: 

"The  poor  devil/'  he  said,  "—Mate  Woman,  be  good 
to  him ;  I  know  you  will.  It  gave  me  pleasure  to  bring  him. 
After  all,  he's  only  hypersensitive — I  don't  know  what 
about,  in  my  case ;  but  at  any  rate,  I  decided  to  forget  his 
silly  treatment  of  me — it  was  only  silly,  after  all. ' ' 

Home  from  the  Bohemian  Club's  High  Jinks,  Jack  set 
tled  into  his  stride  on  the  new  book,  "John  Barleycorn," 
by  some  reviewers  jocosely  dubbed  his  "alcoholic  memoirs" 
and  "a  bibulous  epic."  But  the  work,  containing  so  much 
autobiographical  material  of  serious  portent,  was  far  from 
humorous.  Despite  the  author's  sense  of  artistry  that  made 
it  read  like  fiction  and  placed  certain  exaggerations  to  best 
advantage,  during  my  typing,  as  it  unfolded  day  by  day, 
I  was  conscious  of  shock  upon  shock  at  the  content  of  Jack's 
mind.  Not  only  with  regard  to  his  past,  far  and  near,  was 
I  impressed ;  but  also  by  a  realization  of  the  restlessness  and 
deep-reaching  melancholy  he  suffered  from  the  frustration 


248  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

of  his  dearest  ambition — victorious  fatherhood  of  my  chil 
dren.  But  our  days  together  were  happy,  and  here  is  what 
he  wrote  in  my  copy  of  "  Smoke  Bellew": 

"I  am  still  filled  with  the  joy  of  your  voice  that  was  mine 
last  night  when  you  sang.  Sometimes,  more  than  any  clearly 
wrought  concept  of  you,  there  are  fiber-sounds  in  your  throat  that 
tell  me  all  the  lovableness  of  you,  and  that  I  love  as  madly  as  I 
have  always  loved  all  the  rest  of  you." 
"Oct.  2,  1912. " 

Four  hundred  acres  known  as  the  Freund  Ranch,  had 
been  annexed  to  the  upper  reaches  of  the  Kohler,  though 
Jack  had  to  mortgage.  The  "Wolf  House "  was  slowly 
mounting,  story  by  story,  Jack's  big  draft  horses  laboring 
four  and  four,  from  a  quarry  three  miles  across  the  valley 
and  up  our  mountain,  with  the  great  volcanic  boulders  that 
were  the  same  red-amethystine  hue  of  the  redwood  logs 
also  to  be  used  in  construction.  "We  gloat  over  the  grow 
ing  red  arches, "  my  diary  reads;  and  to  me,  in  Oakland, 
Jack  wrote : 

' '  The  stone  house  grows.  Two  four-horse  wagons  hauling  lumber 
to-day — 20  loads  of  it.  Bar  accidents,  we'll  be  in  our  own  home 
next  fall." 

And  he  goes  on  in  the  same  letter: 

"Miss  you?  I've  got  to  have  you  away  from  me  for  a  couple 
of  days  truly  to  appreciate  you.  To  myself,  all  the  time,  these  days, 
I  keep  swearing :  *  She 's  a  wonder !  She 's  a  wonder ! ' 

"For  you  are.  You're  the  best  thing  that  ever  happened  to 
me. 

"When  are  you  coming  home?    I  miss  you  so  dreadfully." 

In  early  November,  I  went  again  into  hospital  for  an 
overhauling  that  included  a  minor  operation.  We  made  it 
up  that  Jack  should  hold  my  hand  during  the  taking  of  the 
ether,  so  that  we  might  "keep  up  the  lines "  to  the  end  of 


CAPE  HOEN  VOYAGE  249 

consciousness.  I  seemed  to  come  to  the  Edge  of  Things, 
when  another  moment  would  yield  me  the  Riddle  of  the 
Universe.  Poised  on  the  brink,  I  hung  in  an  agony  of  de 
sire  to  fix  firmly  what  I  should  grasp,  in  order  to  pass  the 
priceless  gift  to  Jack — possessed  by  an  overwhelming 
knowledge  of  what  it  would  mean  to  his  brain.  Then  some 
thing  snapped,  and  I  knew  nothing  until  I  heard : 

" She's  gone,  Mr.  London,"  and  I  felt  him  relax  his 
clasp. 

"Oh,  no,  Fm  not,  Mate!"  protested  I.  But  that  was  the 
last  thought  until  I  came  out. 

Jack's  daily  calls,  with  their  tea-parties  for  two,  were  a 
source  of  joy  to  me;  and  one  day,  blowing  into  my  room 
full  of  news  of  the  day,  laden  with  magazines  and  books,  he 
burst  forth : 

"I  simply  cannot  tell  you  what  these  afternoons  mean  to 
me — how  I  look  forward  to  them  from  day  to  day ! ' ' 

Then  he  went  on  to  tell  how  he  had  signed  a  five-year 
serial  contract  with  The  Cosmopolitan,  for  all  his  fiction. 
This,  so  long  as  he  delivered  the  pledged  amount  of  fiction, 
was  not  to  interfere  with  any  non-fiction  he  might  write  and 
sell  to  other  periodicals.  Hence,  when  the  semi-autobio 
graphical  "John  Barleycorn"  appeared  serially,  it  was  in 
the  Saturday  Evemng  Post.  This  work,  while  it  created 
a  sensation,  had  no  phenomenal  book-sale.  Jack  laid  the 
fact  to  the  Post's  enormous  circulation,  and  vowed  that 
the  next  time  he  sold  anything  to  that  weekly  it  must  pay 
him  a  larger  rate  to  offset  the  diminished  book-royalties. 
As  to  the  Post  itself,  he  said : 

"I  hate  the  sight  of  it — because,  forsooth,  when  I  open 
a  number  I  can't  lay  it  down,  and  it  takes  too  much  time 
from  my  other  reading ! ' ' 

Once,  at  a  dance  in  a  Honolulu  hotel,  Cyrus  Curtis,  stand 
ing  alone,  was  pointed  out  to  Jack.  "I'm  going  to  have 
some  fun — watch  me ! "  he  whispered.  Stepping  over  to  the 
great  publisher,  he  said: 


250  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

"Mr.  Curtis,  I  believe? — IVe  done  some  work  for  you 
now  and  again.  * ' 

The  older  man,  little  dreaming  that  this  was  the  author 
of  two  of  his  most  successful  serials,  "The  Call  of  the 
Wild"  and  "John  Barleycorn, "  looked  politely  inquiring, 
probably  thinking  the  modest-voiced,  soft-collared  man 
might  be  a  typesetter. 

"Jack  London  is  my  name." 

1 '  Jack  London ! — Man,  do  get  me  out  of  this ! ' '  And  the 
two,  arms  linked,  disappeared  into  a  veranda  and  were  seen 
no  more  until  time  to  go  home. 

Recalling  those  afternoon  teas  in  my  hospital  room,  a 
very  sweet  thing  happened  one  day.  Somewhere  I  have 
referred  to  Jack's  regret  that  he  had  never  learned  the  soft, 
pretty  ways  of  social  intercourse.  "I  never  bought  flowers 
for  a  woman  in  my  life,"  I  had  heard  him  say.  One  after 
noon,  lying  and  gazing  into  the  sunny  tree-tops,  I  caught 
myself  wondering  how  Jack  would  look  entering  with  a  big 
bunch  of  double-violets.  I  turned  to  see  whom  the  door 
was  admitting,  and  there  was  he,  red  and  flustering  with  an 
armful  of  flowers,  and  my  double-violets — a  bunch  as  large 
as  his  head!  "There  are  yours,  Mate  Woman — and  these 
others  are  for  Joan. ' '  His  elder  girl  was  ill  at  her  mother 's 
home.  Jack  proceeded : 

"Curious  coincidence — IVe  just  got  your  doctor-bill  and 
Joan's  nurse-bill.  And  they're  identical — $125  each!" 

"I'll  tell  you  something  queerer  than  that,"  I  answered, 
handing  him  a  New  York  check  for  the  same  amount. 
1 1  This  is  in  payment  for  my  one  and  only  story, l  The  Wheel, ' 
— and  I  mean  for  you  to  put  it  into  the  family  pot  to  pay 
Joan's  nurse!" 

"I'll  do  it,  I'll  do  it!"  Jack  looked  at  me  steadily 
a  moment,  an  odd  expression  in  the  eyes  that  were  as  blue 
at  the  moment  as  my  violets.  N 

But  what  could  be  sweeter  than  the  tale  of  an  incident 


CAPE  HORN  VOYAGE  251 

that  came  from  his  lips  one  day  when  he  had  slipped  into 
the  bedside  chair  and  taken  my  hand — looking  with  affec 
tion  upon  where  it  lay,  idle  for  once,  in  his  palm: 

"I'm  a  silly  fool,  I  suppose — I  don't  know  what  ever 
made  me  do  it;  but  down  in  the  Forum  Cigar  Store  this 
noon,  matching  for  cigarettes,  the  men  got  to  talking  about 
adventure,  and  women,  and  what  not.  I  don't  know  how  it 
came  about;  but  I  found  myself  telling  those  fellows — I 
can't  even  remember  their  names — how  I  had  once  nearly 
signed  on  to  go  to  the  Marquesas ;  how  I  longed  to  see  those 
and  all  the  isles  of  the  South  Seas,  with,  in  my  eyes,  more 
especially  the  romance  of  conquest  among  the  brown 
maidens  sung  by  poet  and  sailor.  .  .  .  All  very  well,  my 
dear ;  but  I  didn  't  stop  with  that ;  I  went  on,  the  proudest, 
happiest  man  you  ever  saw,  and  bragged,  positively  bragged 
to  those  city  men  that  when  I  had  at  last  gone  into  those 
same  South  Seas,  with  the  memory  of  an  old  longing,  it  was 
with  my  small  white  woman  by  my  side.  And  that,  co-ad 
venturers,  we  lived  our  own  faithful  romance  of  the  South 
Seas." 

When  I  was  able  to  leave  hospital  and  sail  on  the 
Roamver,  he  brought  her  from  Vallejo  to  Oakland,  ac 
companied  by  a  house-guest,  Laurence  Godfrey  Smith,  a 
concert  pianist  whom  he  had  known  in  Australia,  To  him 
Jack  declared : 

"We  chose  a  boat  as  small  as  this  so  that  we  could  flee 
from  even  our  best  friends  once  in  a  while ;  but  we're  going 
to  make  an  exception  of  you,  Laurie.  Though,  I  'm  afraid, ' ' 
dubiously,  "that  we'll  have  to  put  you  to  bed  on  the  floor 
beside  the  centerboard,  with  the  aid  of  a  shoe-horn!"  And 
when,  months  afterward,  we  saw  "Laurie"  off  to  Australia, 
Jack,  contemplating  the  silent  grand  piano,  said :  "It  seems 
as  if  some  one  had  died!" 


CHAPTER  XXXVI 

THE  BAD  YEAR;  AGRICULTURE 

1913 

1913,  though  it  yielded  a  measure  of  good  fortune,  Jack 
was  wont  to  name  his  "bad  year."  It  did  seem  as  if 
almost  everything  that  could  hurt  befell  him.  First,  there 
was  the  death  of  a  woman  friend,  an  invalid,  whom  for  years 
he  had  seen  seldom.  Never  had  I  observed  him  so  stirred 
by  the  passing  of  any  adult  person.  That  this  one,  so 
bright,  so  brave,  should  have  ceased,  for  once  made  his 
philosophy  waver. 

"I  did  something  last  night  I  never  did  before,"  he 
confessed.  "I  concentrated  every  thought  and  actually 
tried  to  call  that  girl  back.  If  any  one  could,  I  think  it 
would  be  myself.  ...  Of  course,"  he  smiled  half -foolishly, 
"there  was  no  answer." 

His  sister's  boy,  Irving  Shepard,  was  nearly  electro 
cuted  while  playing  in  a  tree  during  school  recess,  and  lay 
precariously  ill  for  months  in  our  house. 

Jack  himself  had  to  undergo  a  sudden  operation  for 
appendicitis. 

One  of  the  most  valuable  draft  brood-mares,  in  foal,  was 
found  dead  in  pasture,  from  a  bullet. 

An  old  man  ran  amuck  one  night  and  "shot  up  the 
ranch."  Jack  landing  upon  the  scene,  in  the  space  of  three 
seconds  had  disarmed  the  lunatic,  who,  in  retaliation,  haled 
him  into  court  for  ' '  choking  an  old  man  into  insensibility. ' ' 
"Me,  choking  an  old  man  into  insensibility!"  Jack  fumed. 
"Can't  you  see  me?" 

252 


THE  BAD  YEAR  253 

Then,  there  was  serious  want  of  early  rains,  and  a 
1  '  false  spring  "  brought  out  blossom  and  young  fruit  untime 
ly,  only  to  be  frosted  after  belated  showers.  On  top  of  that, 
the  valleys  of  California  were  visited  by  a  plague  of  grass 
hoppers.  They  fastened  even  upon  Jack's  baby  eucalyptus 
trees,  which  were  supposedly  immune  from  pest  and  blight. 
Nature's  beneficence,  in  his  view,  was  more  than  counter 
balanced  by  nature's  cruelty.  *  '  Certainly, ' '  he  would  groan 
in  unison  with  his  harassed  sister,  "God  doesn't  love  the 
farmer!  Look  at  that  beautiful  half -grown  cornfield 
scorched  and  withered  by  sun  and  north  wind!" 

One  of  the  bitterest  mischances  was  an  attack  upon  him, 
in  court,  by  a  moving-picture  promoter  whose  name  enemies 
metamorphosed  into  *  *  Porchclimber. "  The  suit  was  brought 
to  establish  whether  or  not  Jack  London  owned  any  copy 
right  in  his  work.  A  noted  eastern  attorney  was  retained, 
one  whom  we  heard  had  had  a  hand  in  the  drafting  of  copy 
right  law,  to  take  charge  of  the  infamous  prosecution.  The 
whole  affair  was  so  baldly  pernicious  that  the  Los  Angeles 
judge  threw  it  out  of  court. 

Jack  had  gone  into  the  fight  with  every  atom  of  his 
energy,  and,  since  his  downfall  would  mean  that  of  all 
American  authors,  he  was  backed,  should  he  lose,  by  the 
Authors'  League  of  America,  in  the  determination  to  carry 
the  fight  into  the  highest  courts  of  the  Union.  Very  quietly 
the  noted  lawyer  returned  whence  he  came,  and  it  has  never 
come  to  my  ears  that  he  boasted  of  the  part  for  which  he 
had  been  cast. 

Later  on,  as  an  outcome  of  the  controversy,  two  film- 
versions  of  "The  Sea  Wolf"  were  being  shown  on  opposite 
sides  of  the  same  street  in  Los  Angeles.  Of  Hobart  Bos- 
worth's  depiction  of  the  hero  Jack  said: 

"When  I  wrote  'The  Sea  Wolf,'  the  physical  image 
of  Larsen  that  took  shape  in  my  mind  was  more  or  less 
vague  in  outline  and  detail.  Nevertheless,  it  was  there,  in 
my  mind,  and  I  carried  it  with  me  for  years,  until  it  was 


254  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

almost  real  to  me.  But  it  fled,  like  a  ghost  at  daybreak,  when 
I  saw  on  the  screen  Mr.  Hobart  Bosworth,  the  real,  three 
dimension,  flesh-and-blood  Sea  Wolf.  Until  I  die  the  image 
of  the  Sea  Wolf  will  be  Mr.  Bosworth  as  I  saw  him  on  the 
screen. " 

There  were  moments,  during  the  preparation  for  the 
copyright  fight,  when  Jack  became  sc  enraged  that  I  was 
alarmed  about  him.  But  one  morning,  after  an  untoward 
outbreak  of  "catastrophic  red  wrath'7  the  preceding  night, 
he  came  to  me  with  a  face  of  humility : 

" I 'm  all  right  now,  Mate.  You  needn't  be  afraid  for  me 
any  more.  I'll  be  good  from  now  on. — Only,  you  know,  it's 
awfully  hard  to  sit  by  quietly  and  let  these  sons  of  toads 
try  to  take  the  earnings  of  your  whole  life's  work  away 
from  you ! ' ' 

"If  they  get  me,"  he  said  one  gloomy  day  when  I  had 
cheered  him  with  the  reminder  that  I  shared  his  trouble 
equally,  and  that  we  must  endure  everything  shoulder  to 
shoulder,  "If  they  get  me,  you  might  as  well  know  that 
we'll  lose  everything  we  have — the  Ranch,  even;  every 
thing.  But  I've  still  my  earning  capacity,  and  we'll  buy  a 
big  ship  outright,  one  of  those  we  were  looking  at  last 
winter  in  the  Alameda  Basin.  And  we  '11  put  in  a  fireplace, 
like  Lord  and  Lady  Brassey's  on  the  Sunbeam,  and  take 
your  grand  piano,  and  be  quit  forever  of  a  country  where  a 
man's  life-work  can  be  cheated  out  of  him  by  a  lot  of  thea 
trical  sharks  and  their  crooked  copyright  lawyers — and 
we'll  tell  them  all  to  go  to  hell !"  he  wound  up  out  of  breath. 
And  later,  "Why,  we  could  even  pick  up  odd  freights  here 
and  there  over  the  world,"  he  became  interested  in  spite 
of  his  righteous  wrath,  ' '  and  make  the  old  tub  pay  for  her 
self  !  What  do  you  say  I ' ' 

Eanch  guests  can  attest  the  incredulous  delight  my  at 
titude  afforded  him  in  this  dark  period.  "Would  you  be 
lieve  it ! "  he  was  never  tired  of  acclaiming, ' i  I  actually  think 
she  wanted  me  to  ride  to  my  fall !  I  rather  thought  the  idea 


THE  BAD  YEAR  255 

did  not  shock  her  much.  By  next  morning  she  had  got  well 
under  way  with  cabin-plans — and  as  the  days  went  by  and 
my  troubles  and  my  moods  smoothed  out,  she  seemed  dis 
appointed  that  I  was  not  to  be  driven  to  embarking  upon 
the  endless  voyage.'' 

Perhaps  I  was  disappointed — why  not?  Had  he  not  al 
ways  proved  a  calmer,  happier  soul  in  a  sea-existence  away 
from  the  warring  frictions  of  the  land  ? 

It  may  be  that  hardest  of  misfortunes  was  the  losing  of 
Jack 's  ' '  dream  house ' '  by  fire.  Everything  else  paled,  how 
ever,  when  one  day,  overheated  on  a  long  walk  while  suffer 
ing  from  a  bad  attack  of  poison-oak,  I  fell  ill.  For  some 
time  Jack  had  been  absorbed  in  work,  ranch,  and  other 
problems;  but  now,  faced  with  a  human,  vital  considera 
tion,  all  beside  could  go  by  the  board.  As  he  said : 

"Mate  Woman,  I  always  suspected  I  had  a  heart,  but 
now  I  know.  I  am  the  proudest  man  in  the  world — I  have 
a  heart.  And  when  I  was  face  to  face  with  the  possibility  of 
losing  you,  that  heart  seemed  to  come  right  into  my  throat — 
I  ate  it,  I  tell  you,  and  I  forced  it  down.  Truly,  truly,  I 
was  near  dying ! ' ' 

It  was  about  this  time  that  he  said  to  a  man  friend, 
who  told  me  long  afterward,  "If  anything  should  happen 
to  Charmian,  I'd  kill  myself.  I  wouldn't  try  to  live  without 
her." 

There  were  strains  and  wounds  unhealable  dealt  Jack 
in  that  unlucky  twelve-month,  trials  of  spirit  that  caused 
him  to  say  in  retrospect: 

"My  face  changed  forever  in  that  year  of  1913.  It  has 
.never  been  the  same  since." 

Still,  midmost  of  all  this,  he  protested  having  been 
called  a  pessimist  by  a  Jewish  cub  reporter: 

"I  am  not  a  pessimist  at  all.  Why,  I  exploited  to  you 
that  love  is  the  biggest  thing  in  the  world,  and  held  out  my 
arms  to  you  and  to  all  the  world  in  love  while  I  was 
talking  to  you.  No  man  who  is  a  lover  can  be  a  pessimist. 


256  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

When  you  have  grown  a  few  years  older,  you  will  realize 
that  a  man  who  disagrees  with  your  political,  economic  and 
sociological  beliefs,  does  not  necessarily  have  to  be  a  pessi 
mist — especially  if  he  be  a  self -proclaimed  lover. " 

I  was  not  surprised  when  Jack  announced  that  he  had 
made  a  gamble.  Two  brothers-in-law  of  a  famous  writer, 
with  alluring  credentials,  had  approached  him  with  a  propo 
sition  to  exchange  his  signature  for  certain  Mexican  land 
stocks.  Jack  looked  very  carefully  into  the  business,  and 
assured  me  he  was  safe  in  case  the  project  fell  through. 
* '  I  invest  nothing,  you  see.  They  want  my  name  in  it,  that 
is  all;  and  I  stand  to  win."  But  they  got  him  in  the  end. 

Then  there  was  a  so-called  "fidelity"  loan  outfit  that 
"trimmed"  him  for  a  similar  amount.  This  matter  was 
taken  into  court,  and  while  the  company  was  patently 
fraudulent,  it  won  upon  a  technicality.  Jack  had  chosen  a 
youthful  lawyer  who  had  his  career  to  make: 

"Might  as  well  give  an  unknown  a  chance!  And  he'll 
probably  represent  me  as  well  as  another."  He  was  fond 
of  saying:  "A  'practitioner'  is  one  who  practices  upon  his 
victims,  anyway!" 

These  two  ventures  left  Jack  out  of  pocket  about  ten 
thousand  dollars.  Once  I  made  reference  to  them,  and  he 
said: 

"Please — I  don't  want  to  talk  albout  them  at  all." 
Which  was  unlike  his  usual  eagerness  to  elucidate  his  af 
fairs.  It  must  be  recorded  that  when  he  went  into  specula 
tions,  he  labeled  them  frankly: 

"Eemember  what  I  tell  you,  in  case  these  go  wrong — 
that  they  are  deliberate  gambles.  I  think  they  are  good 
gambles ;  but  sheer  gambles  they  are.  There  7s  nothing  like 
playing  a  flyer  on  a  long  chance.  Pure  lottery.  Sometimes 
a  chance  proves  a  big  winner.  I've  never  won  anything  yet. 
Maybe  now's  my  chance!" 

All  I  had  to  say  was  that  a  man  who  "made  good"  as 
he  did,  in  all  his  obligations,  had  a  right  to  "take  a  flyer" 


THE  BAD  YEAR  257 

upon  occasion.  Jack  smiled  with  pleasure;  and  his  face 
bore  the  same  expression  when  he  told  some  one  how,  one 
day  aboard  the  Roamer,  lying  off  an  inland  city,  I  had 
said: 

1 1 Don't  let  yourself  get  stale  aboard,  if  you  feel  like  hav 
ing  a  little  recreation.  Why  don't  you  go  ashore  and  look 
up  a  good  card  game  of  some  sort.  It  will  do  you  good." 

He  took  the  suggestion,  but  returned  shortly. 

''Oh,  I  pirooted  around  a  while,  and  watched  some  play 
ing;  but  I  didn't  see  anything  that  looked  half  so  good 
to  me  as  this  cabin  and  the  little  wife-woman  who  wanted 
me  to  do  as  I  pleased!  .  .  .  Where's  that  pinochle  deck! 
I  can  beat  you  a  rubber  of  three  out  of  five  games  before 
Sano  has  that  fish-chowder  ready. ' ' 

January  aboard  the  Roamer  saw  Jack  drafting  his  first 
chapter  of  "The  Mutiny  of  the  Elsinore" — a  whacking 
good  sea-story,  true,  modern;  beneath  the  romance  and 
action  a  heartfelt  protest  against  the  decayed  condition 
of  the  American  merchant  marine.  It  was  finished  in 
August,  and  serial  publication,  under  title  of  "The  Gang 
sters,"  begun  in  Hearst  Magazine  for  November.  For 
once,  he  was  touched  with  his  creation.  This  from  my 
diary :  ' '  Mate  has  a  great  moment  in  creating  the  character 
of  Captain  West.  Stopped  me  as  I  went  by,  to  read  me 
morning's  work;  and  his  eyes  were  shining  with  joy  in  our 
mutual  appreciation  of  what  he  had  done."  In  my  gift- 
copy  is  written,  dated  September  21,  1914 : 

"We,  too,  have  made  this  voyage  together,  and,  in  all  happi 
ness,  known  the  winter  North  Atlantic,  the  pamperos  off  the  Plate, 
and  the  Sou 'west  gales  and  Great  West  Wind  Drift  off  the  Horn. 
And  we  '  made  westing, '  as  we  have  made  westing  in  all  the  years 
since  first  we  loved." 

"Lying  on  the  beach  at  Waikiki,"  wrote  a  Honolulu 
newspaperman,  "I  learned  that  'The  Mutiny  of  the  Elsi- 


258  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

nore'  was  written  to  illustrate  how  the  blond  white  man 
from  the  Northern  countries  of  Europe  is  rapidly  being 
crowded  out  of  America,  and  that  as  he  disappears,  he 
will  go  down  fighting  to  the  last,  but  that  he  will  go  down 
beneath  the  weight  of  the  Latin,  the  Slav,  and  other  South 
ern  European  races  that  are  pouring  into  America,  whom 
he  can  rule  as  long  as  he  lives,  but  with  whom  he  cannot 
successfully  compete  in  the  continual  struggle  for  exist 
ence.  ' ' 

Home  from  our  blissful  river-drifting,  Jack  plunged 
deeper  than  ever  into  ranch  development,  the  while  we 
honeymooned  amidst  all  the  quickening  farm  activities.  A 
"frosty  honeymoon, "  Jack  laughed,  for  ice  was  in  the 
ground,  and  there  was  an  unwonted  snowfall.  In  March  he 
gave  me  "The  Night-Born, "  with  this  in  its  fly-leaf: 

1 '  Dear  My- Woman : 

"The  seasons  come  and  go.  The  years  slide  together  in  the  long 
backward  trail,  and  yet  you  and  I  remain,  welded  with  our  arms 
about  each  other  moving  onward  together  and  unafraid  of  any 
future. " 

In  a  new  edition  of  "The  Call  of  the  Wild,"  illustrated 
by  Paul  Bransom,  he  wrote : 

"It  was  many  dear  years  ago  when  I  first  gave  you  a  copy  of 
this  book — in  the  days  when  I  was  hearing  a  love  call ;  and  never 
has  that  same  love  called  more  loudly  than  it  calls  now  in  this 
year  1913,  when  my  arms  are  still  full  of  you,  and  my  heart  still 
full  of  you." 

It  was  all  a  part  of  his  yearning  to  escape  from  the  world 
at  large.  Several  times,  without  self-consciousness,  even 
before  others,  he  held  out  his  arms  to  me  when  I  came  into 
the  living  room — as  if  he  must  clasp  something,  some  one 
that  came  nearest  to  understanding  his  need. 


THE  BAD  YEAE  259 

To  facilitate  his  heavy  correspondence,  a  dictaphone  was 
added  to  our  office  equipment — a  spring  machine,  in  antici 
pation  of  the  installation  of  electricity.  I  was  seriously 
concerned  at  this  innovation,  realizing  its  threat  toward 
the  old  intimacy  of  working  hours. 

"But  think,  my  dear,"  Jack  explained,  justly  indeed, 
"I  don't  have  to  wait  for  you;  I  can  dictate  to  the  damned 
thing  any  moment,  in  bed,  even,  if  I  please,  while  you  pursue 
your  precious  beauty  sleep !" 

After  which  he  practised  on  the  "damned  thing"  for 
an  uninterrupted  afternoon,,  reeling  off  half  a  hundred 
neglected  letters.  When  I  came  to  transcribe  them,  at  the 
end  of  each  cylinder  I  was  greeted  with  a  love  message  in  a 
fair  imitation  of  my  husband's  voice:  "Her  master's 
voice!"  giggled  he.  How  could  any  one  try  to  obstruct 
the  progress  of  such  a  being! 

In  April,  he  went  to  Los  Angeles  on  moving-picture 
business,  but  was  back  in  three  days:  "I  never  stay  very 
long  where  you  are  not,"  he  said  upon  returning. 

In  May  "The  Abysmal  Brute,"  that  "brief  for  the 
purification  of  the  prize-fight  game,"  came  from  the  Cen 
tury  Company,  catching  its  author  in  a  darker  phase  than 
even  I  had  guessed ;  for  when  he  put  the  little  book  into  my 
hands,  I  found  this  inside : 

' '  The  years  pass,  we  live  much,  and  yet,  to  me,  I  find  but  one 
vindication  for  living,  but  one  bribe  for  living — and  that  vindica 
tion  is  you,  the  bribe  is  you. 

"Your  Lover, 
"Jack  London. " 

And  here  is  something  about  love : 

"Woman,  beyond  all  doubt,  remains  the  biggest  thing  in  the 
world  to-day.  The  love-motif  is  the  highest  thing  that  can  exist 
between  normal  humans.  To  me,  existence  is  impossible  without 
love.  Love  does  not  lead  nor  direct.  Love  satisfies  as  no  other  thing 
in  human  knowledge  satisfied.  Love  is  the  ultimate  benediction  of 


260      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

living.    It  ennobles ;  it  makes  the  impossible  possible ;  it  makes  life 
worth  living.7' 


A  portion  of  Jack's  hypochondria  might  be  laid  to  the 
bodily  distemper  that  was  leading  up  to  an  acute  attack 
of  appendicitis.  I  think  he  was  subsequently  in  lighter 
humor.  The  history  of  his  recovery  from  the  knife,  against 
illustrating  that  magnificent  physical  endownment,  might  be 
written  down  as  "uneventful"  in  the  annals  of  surgery, 
except  for  its  astonishing  rapidity. 

On  July  6,  we  rushed  him  to  Oakland  and  into  hospital. 
On  the  8th,  Dr.  William  S.  Porter  operated.  Four  days 
later,  an  important  moving-picture  conference  was  held  in 
Jack's  room.  Other  afternoons  were  filled  with  callers, 
and  his  room  was  banked  in  flowers.  "Only,"  the  bed-rid 
den  one  grumbled  sheepishly,  "I  wish  men  wouldn't  bring 
me  flowers — somehow  it  mekes  me  feel  silly."  Frolich,  the 
sculptor,  unwittingly  mitigated  the  situation  by  contribut 
ing  an  absurd  corbel,  a  cowled  monk  in  the  ultimate  throes 
of  seasickness,  and  Jack  racked  himself  with  mirth.  News 
paper  men  and  women  came  and  went,  and  headlines  featur 
ing  "The  Call  of  the  Wild  Appendix,"  and  "Jack  London 
Takes  the  Count,"  beguiled  his  morning  tray. 

On  the  seventh  day,  the  patient  stood  on  his  feet,  then 
inspected  the  building  from  a  wheeled  chair.  Next  morn 
ing,  Dr.  Porter,  in  his  own  car,  conveyed  Jack  London  to  the 
house  on  Twenty-seventh  Street.  The  obstreperous  con 
valescent  insisted  upon  going  out  to  dine  the  following 
night,  as  well  as  to  the  theater,  enjoyed  a  Turkish  bath  and 
a  cafe  dinner  on  the  tenth  day  after  the  operation ;  and  on 
the  twelfth  he  left  for  Los  Angeles  to  jump  into  "the  hot 
test,  hardest  business  fight"  of  his  life  with  the  wily  but 
ingratiating  Hebrew,  Mr.  "Porchclimber."  The  twentieth 
day  beheld  him  at  home  and  in  the  saddle — another  tribute 
to  his  own  vitality  and  to  the  cunning  of  his  surgeon  friend. 

Jack  could  not  abide  ether  as  an  anaesthetic.    This  time 


THE  BAD  YEAR  261 

he  was  first  given  chloroform,  and  when,  once  unconscious, 
ether  was  substituted,  he  resisted  so  violently  that  chloro 
form  again  had  to  be  resorted  to. 

With  that  prescience  of  the  Builder  that  brooks  no  de 
lay,  Jack  mortgaged  everything  in  sight,  even  our  cottage 
and  the  new  one  he  had  erected  for  Eliza,  to  obtain  funds 
needful  for  his  big  aims.  On  August  18,  with  but  $300  in 
bank,  and  large  obligations  pressing,  he  negotiated  another 
mortgage  in  order  to  complete  the  Wolf  House  before  win 
ter.  But  I  always  knew,  beyond  questioning,  that  no  matter 
what  hazards  he  seemed  to  be  taking,  he  divined  the  way  out. 

The  Bank  placed  an  insurance  on  the  Hill  Ranch  cover 
ing  half  the  amount  loaned.  There  was  no  other  insurance 
on  the  huge  purple-red  pile,  since  every  one  agreed  that 
rock  and  concrete,  massive  beams  and  redwood  logs  with 
the  bark  on,  were  practically  fireproof  unless  ignited  in  a 
dozen  places,  owing  to  the  quadrangular  construction  and 
cement  partitions. 

Nevertheless,  three  nights  later,  August  22,  the  entire 
inflammable  part  of  the  high  stone  shell  was  destroyed.  I 
was  awakened  by  voices  from  Jack's  porch.  Tiptoeing  out, 
.1  saw  Eliza,  by  his  bedside,  point  in  the  direction  of  the 
Wolf  House  half  a  mile  away,  where  flames  and  smoke  rose 
straight  into  the  windless,  star-drifted  sky. 

Teams  were  harnessed,  and  leaving  the  Japanese  to 
keep  an  eye  on  things  at  home,  if  incendiarism  was  in  the 
air,  we  drove  leisurely  across  the  Ranch.  "What's  the  use 
of  hurry f"  Jack  demanded.  "If  that  is  the  Big  House 
burning,  nothing  can  stop  it  now ! ' ' 

All  the  countryside,  that  had  come  to  feel  a  personal 
pride  and  ownership  in  "Jack's  House,"  had  gathered  or 
was  arriving.  Public  sentiment  ran  high:  and  I  think, 
had  the  criminal  or  criminals  who  fired  it  been  detected 
that  night,  there  would  have  been  a  stringing-up  to  the 
nearest  limbs,  in  lusty  frontier  fashion. 


262  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

Already  the  beautiful  red-tile  roof  had  clattered  down 
inside  the  glowing  walls,  and  the  only  care  that  need  be  ex 
ercised  was  in  regard  to  the  adjacent  forest.  "Promise 
me,"  I  said  to  Jack,  so  lately  out  of  hospital,  "that  you 
won't  forget  yourself,  and  overdo."  He  made  the  pledge 
and  kept  it,  very  quietly  walking  about  and  directing  the 
men. 

"Why  don't  you  cry,  or  get  excited,  or  something,  you 
two  I ' '  asked  a  neighbor.  '  *  You  don 't  seem  to  realize  what 's 
happened  to  you!" 

"What's  the  use?"  Jack  repeated  his  thought.  "It 
won't  rebuild  the  house. — Though  it  can  be  rebuilt!"  he 
swore  cheerfully,  purpose  in  his  eye. 

But  uneraseably  beneath  our  contained  exterior  lay  the 
vision  of  it  six  hours  before,  palpitating  in  the  mid-sum 
mer  sunset  light,  when  we  had  emerged  on  horseback  from 
the  ravine  Jack  called  his  house-garden.  He  had  burst  out : 

"How  beautiful — Our  House,  Mate  Woman!  Did  I  tell 
you  that  Harrison  Fisher,  after  I  brought  him  home  from 
the  Jinks  two  weeks  ago,  told  some  one  it  was  the  most 
beautiful  house  in  the  West?" 

Yes,  Jack  laughed  and  buoyed  up  the  spirits  of  the 
Eanch  while  his  dream  castle  ascended  in  lurid  smoke  that 
hot  August  night.  But  when  at  four  in  the  dawn,  the  tension 
relaxed,  and  uppermost  in  his  mind  loomed  the  wicked,  cruel, 
senseless  destruction  of  the  only  home  he  had  ever  made 
for  himself,  he  lay  in  my  pitying  arms  and  shook  like  a 
child.  After  a  few  moments  he  stilled,  and  said : 

"It  isn't  the  money  loss — though  that  is  grave  enough 
just  at  this  time.  The  main  hurt  comes  from  the  wanton 
despoiling  of  so  much  beauty." 

A  long  pause,  and  then,  referring  to  the  recent  death 
of  the  bridegroom  of  a  young  friend : 

"Do  you  know — thinking  it  all  over,  I'd  be  willing  to  go 
through  this  whole  night  again,  and  many  times,  if  it  could 
bring  Tom  back ! ' ' 


THE  BAD  YEAR  263 

We  never  did  learn  whose  hand  applied  the  torch.  I 
had  all  but  written  ' '  assassin. ' '  For  the  razing  of  his  house 
killed  something  in  Jack,  and  he  never  ceased  to  feel  the 
tragic  inner  sense  of  loss.  To  this  day  the  ruins  of  amethys 
tine  stone,  arch  beyond  arch,  tower  above  tower,  stand 
mute  yet  appealing.  Total  strangers,  not  all  of  them  women, 
have  wept  before  them,  have  cried  out,  "Poor  Jack!" 

From  his  immediate  actions,  however,  none  but  Eliza 
and  I  guessed  the  extent  of  his  repining.  Something  had  to 
be  done,  and  quickly.  Forni,  the  master-mason,  must  be 
taken  in  hand.  He  was  like  a  father  who  had  lost  a  child, 
and  in  danger  of  losing  his  reason.  Two  of  his  men,  the 
big,  blue-eyed  Martinelli  brothers,  wandered  around  the 
unapproachably  hot  ruins  like  spirits  suddenly  bereft  of 
Paradise,  crossing  their  breasts  and  murmuring,  "Mary!" 
1 1 Christ!"  Even  Jack  had  to  turn  away  when  the  man 
who  had  nailed  the  last  Spanish  tile  before  the  conflagra 
tion,  said  with  wet  eyes :  "Well,  my  roof  never  leaked,  any 
way!" 

The  fire  was  on  Friday.  On  Monday,  Jack  had  the  en 
tire  crew  putting  up  a  splendid  retaining-wall  of  mossy 
gray  stone,  that  had  long  been  in  his  eye,  on  the  right  of  a 
driveway  to  the  smoking  walls  which  came  to  be  known 
simply  as  The  Euins.  Eliza  was  scarred  to  the  soul  by  the 
sudden  wiping  out  of  her  work — she  had  superintended  the 
building  from  start  to  finish;  but  she  met  Jack  whole 
heartedly  in  showing  the  workmen  and  the  country  round 
about  that  the  end  of  the  world  had  not  come.  It  was  when 
we  came  to  readjust  that  the  loss  became  most  evident. 

My  diary  calls  it  up: 

"We  lay  aside  notes  and  samples,  and  plans  drawn  for 
this  and  that,  and  feel  as  if  the  bottom  had  fallen  out  of 
everything — light,  queer,  unreal. ' ' 

I  have  been  asked  why  Jack  London,  socialist,  friend 
of  the  common  man,  built  so  large  a  house.  And  I  have  been 
glad  that  there  were  those  who  asked,  for  it  has  ever  been 


264      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

my  suspicion  that  some  one  who  waited  not  to  ask,  set  the 
brand  to  that  house. 

How  shall  I  say?  Jack  could  not  traffic  in  small  things, 
any  more  than  he  could  deftly  handle  trifling  objects  with 
his  fingers.  All  he  did  was  in  a  large  way.  His  boyish 
memories  were  of  moving  from  one  small,  inadequate 
wooden  domicile  to  another.  Being  what  he  could  not  help 
being,  and  remaining  true  to  himself,  lover  of  large  and 
enduring  things,  he  must  invite  spaciousness  and  solidity — 
room  to  breathe  in,  and  for  others  to  breathe  in.  The  an 
cient  frame  cottage  in  which  on  the  ranch  he  lived  and 
worked  and  received  all  men  at  his  table,  was  entirely  dis 
proportionate  to  his  needs.  Being  so  indefatigable  and  sys 
tematic  a  worker  and  thinker  he  required  everything  to  his 
hand.  A  smoothly  running  domestic  menage  made  for 
efficiency  in  other  matters.  Here,  where  he  had  to  live  dur 
ing  the  three  years  while  the  Wolf  House  building  went 
on  intermittently,  the  rooms  were  crammed  and  jammed 
and  spilling  over  with  the  very  implements  of  his  many 
branches  of  endeavor.  Only  the  combined  efforts  of  the 
two  of  us,  and  later  a  third,  a  secretary,  made  it  anything 
less  than  distracting  for  Jack  to  function  in  the  cramped 
apartments.  Three-quarters  of  his  library  was  packed  away 
molding  in  the  big  stone  barn  half  a  mile  away,  and  many 
the  time  he  could  not  lay  his  hand  upon  some  volume  espe 
cially  needed. 

Wanderer,  yet  deeply  fond  of  his  own  home,  a  place 
for  the  permanence  of  his  treasures — curios,  blankets,  books, 
"gear" — he  sighed  with  content  knowing  that  in  the  big 
house  there  would  be  a  story  in  one  wing  devoted  to  the 
library ;  above  that,  his  roomy  work-den ;  on  the  first  floor, 
dining  room  and  kitchen.  The  middle  story  of  the  opposing 
wing  was  to  be  mine — a  place  where  I  might  retreat  to  rest 
and  call  my  soul  my  own  when  the  outside  world  was  too 
much  within  our  walls.  Above,  Jack's  sleeping  tower 
reared.  Beneath  mine  were  the  guest  chambers,  and,  still 


THE  BAD  YEAR  265 

below,  servants  '  quarters  and  the  like.  The  connecting  link 
of  these  two  wings  formed  a  two-story  living-room,  partially 
flanked  by  a  gallery ;  and  underneath  this  high  hall  lay  what 
Jack  termed  the  "stag  room,"  where  no  female  might  ven 
ture  except  by  especial  ukase  from  the  lords  of  creation  who 
might  lounge  and  play  billiards  and  otherwise  disport  them 
selves  therein.  The  house  foundation  measured  roughly 
eighty  feet  from  corner  to  corner. 

It  should  be  thought  of,  that  house,  in  relation  to  Jack, 
not  as  a  mansion,  but  as  a  big  cabin,  a  lofty  lodge,  a  hos 
pitable  tepee,  where  he,  simple  and  generous  despite  all 
his  baffling  intricacy,  could  stietch  himself  and  beam  upon 
you  and  me  and  all  the  world  that  gathered  by  his  log- 
fires.  I  know  a  friend  who  appreciated  this  largeness  of 
the  man,  and  who  with  man 's  tenderness  calls  him  the  Big 
Chief. 

To  one  who  suggests  that  this  house  would  have  been  a 
recreation  place  for  guests  ' '  acquired  by  the  sole  reason  of 
Jack's  fame  and  prosperity,"  I  am  able  to  protest  that  it 
would  have  been  the  contrary — in  the  Wolf  House  as  in  the 
rickety  cottage,  our  transient  household  would  have  been 
made  up  mostly  of  the  wanderers,  the  intellectual  (and 
otherwise)  hoboes,  sometimes  washed,  sometimes  not,  while 
the  master  drove  his  pen  for  the  multitude  without.  As 
always,  these  would  have  come  to  sit  with  us,  and  furnish 
grist  for  Jack's  unsleeping  brain-mill.  That  was  the  sort 
of  "inspiration,"  to  quote  my  inquirer,  he  would  have  con 
tinued  to  draw  about  him  "within  such  walls  of  stone." 
Why,  the  very  form  of  the  rough  rock  hacienda  was  an  in 
vitation,  with  its  embracing  wings,  its  sunny  pool  between 
the  wide,  arched  corridors  and  grape-gnarled  pergola !  The 
reason  that  seekers  after  the  truth  about  Jack  London  find 
more  reminder  of  him  in  the  simple  red  boulder  that  lies 
upon  his  ashes  than  in  the  aching  ruins  of  his  great  house, 
is  because  they  do  not  know  the  all  of  Jack  London.  He 


266  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

was  a  man  before  all  else — big  and  solid,  and  spacious,  and 
unvaryingly  true  to  himself. 

And  so  with  his  ranching.  There,  too,  he  wrought  large 
ly :  ' '  No  picayune  methods  for  me, ' '  he  would  vow.  * l  When 
I  go  into  the  silence,  I  want  to  know  that  I  have  left  be 
hind  me  a  plot  of  land  which,  after  the  pitiful  failures  of 
others,  I  have  made  productive.  .  .  .  Can't  you  see?  Oh, 
try  to  see ! — In  the  solution  of  the  great  economic  problems 
of  the  present  age,  I  see  a  return  to  the  soil.  I  go  into  farm 
ing  because  my  philosophy  and  research  have  taught  me  to 
recognize  the  fact  that  a  return  to  the  soil  is  the  basis  of 
economics  ...  I  see  my  farm  in  terms  of  the  world,  and 
the  world  in  terms  of  my  farm  ...  Do  you  realize  that  I 
devote  two  hours  a  day  to  writing  and  ten  to  farming! — my 
thought-work,  my  preparation,  at  night,  and  when  I  am  out- 
of-doors." 

Similar  revelation  of  himself  he  gave  on  the  witness 
stand  only  a  few  days  before  his  death,  when  suit  had  been 
brought  to  restrain  him  from  using  his  share  of  the  waters 
of  a  creek  boundary  much  needed  in  his  scheme  of  agri 
culture.  But  in  the  whole  sad  affair,  which  contributed  its 
weight  toward  his  break-down,  not  one  iota  of  understand 
ing  was  accorded  him  by  the  prosecutors,  among  whom  were 
some  near  and  dear  to  him. 

From  time  to  time  I  would  ask:  "When,  in  the  years  to 
come,  do  you  think  you  will  ever  pull  even,  financially,  with 
your  ranch  project  ?"  And  it  was  always  with  a  laugh  that 
he  would  return:  "Never,  my  dear — at  least,  I  want  and 
expect  to  have  the  place  eventually  sustain  itself.  That 
would  be  the  natural  object.  But  it  will  never  make  money 
for  me,  because  there  is  so  much  developing  I  want  to  keep 
on  doing,  endless  experiments  I  want  to  make." 

A  noted  socialist  lecturer,  with  misapprehension  and 
prejudice  in  his  eye,  spent  a  day  or  two  on  the  ranch.  "At 
last  I  see,"  said  he.  "I  was  wrong.  In  your  work  here,  as 
you  unfold  it  to  me,  I  see  a  social  creation!" 


THE  BAD  YEAR  267 

Once  more,  let  me  impress :  temperamentally  Jack  Lon 
don  was  a  Builder  of  books,  of  houses,  of  roads,  of  soil,  of 
things  that  would  outlast  merely  temporary  uses.  My  house 
will  be  standing,  act  of  God  permitting,  for  a  thousand  years. 
My  boat,  act  of  God  permitting,  will  be  intact  and  afloat  a 
hundred  years  or  five  hundred  years  hence.  Little  call  to 
point  out  that  he  did  not  build  for  himself  alone. 

4 'Who  will  come  after  us,  Mate  Woman!"  he  looked  into 
the  distances.  "Who  will  reap  what  I  have  sown  here  in 
this  almighty  sweet  land?  You  and  I  will  be  forgotten. 
Others  will  come  and  go ;  these,  too,  shall  pass,  as  you  and 
I  shall  pass,  and  others  take  their  places,  each  telling  his 
love,  as  I  tell  you,  that  life  is  sweet ! ' ' 

He  was  fond,  at  this  time,  of  having  me  play  Arthur 
Footers  Rubaiyat  Suite,  particularly  the  section  illustrat 
ing 

"How  sultan  after  sultan,  with  his  pomp, 

Abode  his  destined  hour,  and  went  his  way." 

And  Macdowell's  "Sea  Pieces"  swept  him  out  upon  the 
tide  of  his  dreams. 

True  to  his  determination  not  to  be  downcast  over  the 
houseburning,  Jack  redoubled  ranch  operations.  "I  am 
the  sailor  on  horseback!"  chanted  he.  "Watch  my  dust! 
.  .  .  Oh,  I  shall  make  mistakes  a-many ;  but  watch  my  dream 
come  true. ' '  And,  as  he  loved  the  name  of  Sailor,  Skipper, 
Captain,  for  the  love  he  bore  the  sea,  so  he  now  loved  as 
well  to  be  greeted  Farmer,  what  of  his  overmastering  de 
sire  to  make  blossom  the  exhausted  wilderness.  Beauty,  in 
his  precincts,  began  to  reveal  itself  more  and  more  in  the 
light  of  tillable  soil,  of  food-getting  efficiency.  "Don't 
grieve  about  the  clearing  of  that  field,  or  that  little  clump 
of  scrubby  redwoods,"  he  would  say.  "We  get  used  to  a 
certain  view,  and  the  idea  of  altering  it  is  untenable. 
But  when  it  is  altered,  we  are  surprised  how  soon  we  adjust, 
and  even  forget.  Remember,  there  is  endless  wildwood 


268      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

farther  back — it  isn  't  as  if  I  were  depriving  you  of  it.  Try 
to  dream  with  me  my  dreams  of  fruitful  acres.  Do  not  be  a 
slave  to  an  old  conception.  Try  to  realize  what  I  am 
after/1 

In  step  with  the  day-dream  went  the  visions  of  his 
slumber,  and  he  loved  them:  "I  am  a  keen  dreamer,  and  I 
love  to  dream.  It  seems  to  me  that  my  life  is  doubled  by  the 
amount  of  dreaming  I  do  every  night. ' '  Often  he  recounted 
to  me  a  story  of  long  hours  spent  in  a  verdant  land  where  he 
seemed  to  be  proprietor,  rolling  country  where,  just  be 
yond  each  hill,  great  schemes  of  agricultural  betterment 
were  flourishing.  Many  times,  he  said,  I  was  by  his  side : 
but  for  the  most  part  he  would  be  instructing  intelligent 
foremen  how  to  carry  out  his  ideas.  This  trend  in  his  un 
conscious  mind  increased  until  the  day  of  his  death. 

The  former  quiet  of  the  ranch  gave  place  to  a  pervasive 
hum  of  important  matters  afoot.  Rending  blasts  of  dyna 
mite  far  afield  spoke  of  a  new  era  in  the  somnolent  order 
of  the  old  land  of  the  Spaniards.  Jack  founded  his  pure 
bred  English  Shire  stable  by  the  purchase  of  nothing  less 
than  Neuadd  Hillside,  grand  champion  of  California,  and 
once  prize-winner  in  England.  He  weighed  a  ton,  and  was 
wondrously  shaped  withal.  Cockerington  Princess,  cham 
pion  of  her  own  sex,  also  came  to  gladden  our  eyes,  while 
the  converting  into  stables  of  theretofore  unused  stone  win 
ery  buildings  went  on  apace.  Into  each  barn,  for  the  men 
to  scan  and  heed,  was  posted  a  long  list  of  rules  borrowed 
from  a  great  western  express  corporation  for  the  care  and 
use  of  the  horses. 

"  Although  the  tails  of  these  imported  horses  are  docked, 
we  won't  dock  their  colts, "  Jack  remarked  on  the  day  the 
two  grand  beasts,  pranked  out  show-fashion  in  colored 
worsted,  were  unloaded  from  the  stock  "palace  car"  amidst 
much  comment  in  Glen  Ellen.  "Do  you  know,"  he  asked 
me,  "why  horses  like  those  aren't  common  sights  on  the 
country  roads  of  the  United  States?  I'll  tell  you:  because 


THE  BAD  YEAR  269 

our  farmers  are  so  stupidly  wasteful  about  saving  feed! 
I  mean  just  that.  Instead  of  crowding  the  development  of 
a  colt,  particularly  the  first  year,  by  care  and  feeding,  he 
turns  it  out  to  grub  for  itself  in  pasture.  That  first  year  is 
like  the  first  year  of  any  other  baby.  It's  what  so  vitally 
counts. ' 9 

Six  days  before  his  voice  was  silenced,  Jack  said  some 
thing  like  the  following  to  an  interviewer : 

"What  is  the  difference  between  this  good  team  and 
that  team  of  scrubs?  Man  alive!  What  is  the  difference 
between  that  field,  as  it  is  now,  and  the  same  field  as  it  was 
two  years  ago?  What  is  the  difference  between  anything 
that  is  strong  and  fine  and  well  arranged — be  it  words  or 
stones  or  trees  or  ideas  or  what  not — and  the  same  elements 
as  they  were  in  their  unorganized  weakness?  Man — the 
brain  of  man,  the  effort  that  man  had  put  into  man's  su 
preme  task — organizing!  That  is  the  work  of  man,  work 
that  is  worth  a  man's  doing — to  take  something  second-rate 
and  chaotic  and  to  put  himself  into  it  until  it  becomes 
orderly  and  first-rate  and  fine. ' ' 

He  was,  in  short,  really  far  more  interested  in  intro 
ducing  better  farming  into  Sonoma,  County  and  the  country 
at  large  than  he  was  in  leaving  behind  masterpieces  of 
literature. 

As  usual,  for  him  to  think  out  a  thing  was  to  see  it  done ; 
and  early  he  had  learned,  with  his  instinct  for  teaching  and 
for  effort-saving,  to  instruct  others  now  to  act  upon  what 
he  thought  out.  Thus,  he  was  pressing  his  sister  hard  and 
ever  harder,  firing  her  with  the  depth  and  breadth  of  his 
outlook.  There  were  long,  grilling  hours  of  discussion — 
he  trying  to  inculcate  his  principles,  she  giving  him  the  bene 
fit  of  what  her  practical  judgment,  regardless  of  books, 
prompted  her  to  do. 

Here  are  two  loose  notes  among  his  many: 

"  Please,  please,  know  that  I  carry  only  general  principles  in 
my  head,  and  do  not  carry  details/' 


270  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

"You  must  always  allow  me  the  latitude  of  a  mind  that  is 
filled  with  a  million  other  things  that  have  nothing  whatever  to  do 
with  this  ranch,  so  that  when  I  query,  I  query  honestly  and  sin 
cerely  and  without  ulterior  purpose,  so  that  all  I  want  is  what  I 
ask  for,  and  I  don't  want  guessed  replies  to  what  you  guess  are 
ulterior  questions  on  my  part.  I  ain't  got  no  ulterior  questions  or 
motives,  but,  just  once  in  a  while,  I  have  a  legitimate,  overwhelm 
ing  desire  to  know  what  is,  which  what  is  has  occurred  during  my 
periods  of  being  away  from  ranch,  of  being  immersed  in  problems 
which  have  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  ranch,  save  that  they 
enable  me  to  keep  ranch  going.  I  make  my  living  out  of  the  world. 
I  must  90%  of  my  time  devote  myself  to  the  world.  Please,  please, 
give  me  that  90%  latitude  of  ignorance  and  of  non-remembrance 
of  the  per  cent,  of  ranch  happenings  that  hit  you  every  moment  of 
every  day  and  that  hit  me  possibly  once  in  six  months.  Meet  me  in 
at  least  a  9  to  1  percentage  sympathy. " 

Discussion  but  infrequently  took  place  between  Jack 
and  the  workmen,  for  lie  was  fond  of  learning  by  argument. 
Little  they  could  teach  him.  And  so  for  the  most  part  he 
kept  from  contact  with  them.  "  Eliza  is  the  captain  I  have 
picked  out  to  run  this  particular  ship  of  mine,"  he  would 
say  to  me,  repository  of  his  deductions  upon  each  situation 
as  it  unfolded,  "and  you  know  how  much  I  interfere  be 
tween  captain  and  man ! ' '  But  there  was  often  the  irk  of 
those  who  knew  less  than  Jack,  who  tried  to  hold  him  back : 
* '  You  can't  make  it  work,  Mr.  London.  We  have  never  done 
it  this  way." 

"Why  not?"  lie  would  blaze.  "Why  can't  I  make  it 
work?  Do  you  think  that  I  learn  nothing  from  the  greatest 
specialists  in  your  profession,  when  I  put  in  whole  nights, 
month  upon  month,  studying  them?  What  do  you  know 
about  government  bulletins,  government  deductions  based 
upon  scientific  principles  that  have  been  put  to  work?" 

I  take  the  following  from  a  transcript  of  evidence  in 
the  water-suit  before  referred  to : 


THE  BAD  YEAR  271 

" Aren't  you  a  good  enough  agriculturist  to  estimate  an 
acre  of  ground?"  was  the  question  put  by  opposing  counsel. 

"No,"  drawled  Jack.  "We  all  have  our  weaknesses.  I 
never  could  master  an  acre,  by  looking  at  it.  I  always  send 
somebody  out  to  measure  it  for  me. ' '  And  to  the  question, 
i '  Have  you  ever  acted  as  a  farmer,  practically  tilling  the  soil 
yourself!"  he  explained  as  below: 

"I  have  never  had  my  hands  on  the  handles  of  a  plow 
in  my  life,  but  I  know  more  about  plowing  than  any  plow 
man  who  ever  worked  for  me.  I  have  acquired  practically 
every  bit  of  my  knowledge  from  the  books.  I  never  was  a 
graduate  of  an  university ;  I  never  finished  the  first  half  of 
my  freshman  year  at  a  university;  yet  I  have  thought  it 
nothing  to  face  a  group  of  thirty  or  forty  professors  ham- 
mer-and-tongs  on  philosophy,  sociology,  and  all  the  other 
'ologies — the  group  including  David  Starr  Jordan  and 
others  of  the  same  high  intellectual  caliber.  I  was  able  to 
do  that  and  hold  a  table  of  debate — I,  who  had  never  been 
through  a  university — because  I  had  gotten  my  knowledge 
from  the  same  books  they  had  got  their  knowledge  from. 
The  same  with  plowing  and  other  branches  of  farm  knowl 
edge.  I  state  that  I  am  eminently  fitted  from  my  knowledge 
of  the  books." 

He  went  on:  "My  knowledge  of  agriculture  and  farm 
ing  is  also  derived  from  actual  contact  with  the  soil — look 
ing  at  it,  on  occasion  hiring  experts  to  come  and  tell  me  their 
diagnoses  of  these  thick  soils  or  bad  soils  or  wrong  soils. 
I  find  very  often  that  they  disagree  with  one  another ;  then 
I  go  back  to  my  books  arid  find  the  right  clue,  applying 
it,  making  my  experiments  year  after  year,  whether  in 
fertilizer  or  in  methods  of  cultivation  or  drainage  or  the 
thousand  factors  that  enter  into  successful  tillage." 

His  aloof  supervision  was  expressed  in  notes  to  be 
passed  on.  "But  see  that  they  are  returned  and  preserved, 
so  that  I  may  refer  to  them  at  any  time." 

From  a  sheaf  I  choose  almost  at  random: 


272      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

"  Watch  out  for  the  first  unexpected  rain  catching  lots  of  our 
equipment  exposed.  As  for  instance  the  wood-saw  and  engine. 
Months  in  the  sun  and  fog  and  dew  have  not  done  them  any  good. 
A  rain  will  do  worse." 

"Who  left  half  a  dozen  sacks  of  cement  in  rain  to  spoil  under 
roofless  section  of  rock-crusher  house?" 

"Near  rock-crusher  is  a  shingled  roof  section,  lying  flat  on  the 
ground,  going  to  hell. ' ' 

"In  any  new  building  operations  around  the  ranch,  such  as 
the  bath-house,  etc.,  are  the  men  who  do  the  work  told  to  keep  the 
nails  cleaned  up?  Because  if  they  are  so  told,  and  continue  to  let 
the  nails  lie  around,  fire  them.  To-day  it  was  King  who  was  lamed ; 
some  time  ago  it  was  one  of  the  Shire  mares.  To-morrow  it  may  be 
Neuadd.  Is  'father'  to  sit  back  and  pay  for  the  Veterinary,  for 
the  stallion  man's  time,  for  the  crippled  horse's  time?" 

And  first,  last,  and  always,  stood  his  creed: 
"What  we  do  must  be  adequate  and  permanent/' 
His   plaint   to  me,   aside,   when   confronted   with   the 
obstinate  wall  of  farmer-brains  smaller  than  his  own,  was 
like  this : 

i  i  The  reason  a  man  works  for  me,  is  because  he  cannot 
work  for  himself.  Stupid  boobs,  most  of  them,  who  do  not 
wake  up  to  avail  themselves  of  the  fund  of  knowledge  ready 
for  the  asking.  In  the  matter  of  government  reports,  over 
and  above  the  price  of  a  postcard  of  inquiry,  knowledge  is 
as  free  as  air. ' ' 

Out  of  his  despair  with  the  incapacity  of  employes,  their 
unwillingness  to  be  educated,  he  coined  the  phrase  "Down 
the  hill,"  which  meant  the  discharge  of  those  who  could 
neither  learn  nor  take  orders.  "The  more  I  see  of  men," 
he  would  apostrophize,  "the  more  I  turn  to  the  land;  yet, 
in  order  to  manipulate  that  land,  I  must  deal  with  those 
very  men  who  hurt  me  so  with  their  blind  ineffectiveness 
and  lack  of  foresight.  And  they  try  to  teach  me,  who  spend 
my  nights  with  the  books.  My  work  on  this  land,  and  my 
message  to  America,  go  hand  in  hand!"  And  he  would 


THE  BAD  YEAR  273 

ride  away,  waving  his  cowboy  quirt,  bent  upon  appraising 
a  worn-out  plot  of  ground  with  the  intention  of  reclaiming 
it. 

Of  course,  his  experiment  was  being  advertised  far  and 
wide  by  the  press.  He  had,  as  one  farm  magazine  de 
clared,  1 1  ideas  on  the  profession  of  farming  that  will  do  the 
world  more  good  than  all  the  stories  he  ever  could  write. " 

"When  I  bought  one  hundred  and  twenty-nine  acres 
near  Glen  Ellen  nine  years  ago  I  knew  nothing  of  farming,  ' ' 
Jack  gave  out.  "I  bought  the  place  mostly  for  its  beauty, 
as  a  place  to  live  and  write  in. 

"  About  forty  acres  was  cleared  and  I  tried  to  raise 
hay  for  my  horses,  but  soon  found  I  could  scarcely  get  the 
seed  back.  The  soil  had  been  worn  out ;  it  had  been  farmed 
for  years  by  old-fashioned  methods  of  taking  everything 
off  and  putting  nothing  back. 

"The  region  was  a  back-water  district.  Most  of  the 
ranchers  were  poor  and  hopeless ;  no  one  could  make  any 
money  ranching  there,  they  told  me.  They  had  worked  the 
land  out  and  their  only  hope  was  to  move  on  somewhere  else 
and  start  to  work  new  land  out  and  destroy  its  value. 

' '  I  began  to  study  the  problem,  wondering  why  the  fertil 
ity  of  this  land  had  been  destroyed  in  forty  or  fifty  years 
when  land  in  China  has  been  tilled  for  thousands  of  years, 
and  is  still  fertile. 

"My  neighbors  were  typified  by  the  man  who  said: 
"You  can't  teach  me  anything  about  farming;  I've  worked 
three  farms  out !  Which  is  as  wise  as  the  remark  of  the  wo 
man  who  said  she  guessed  she  knew  all  there  was  to  know 
about  raising  children — hadn't  she  buried  five? 

"I  adopted  the  policy  of  taking  nothing  off  the  ranch. 
I  raised  stuff  and  fed  it  to  the  stock.  I  got  the  first  manure 
spreader  ever  seen  up  there,  and  so  put  the  fertilizer  back 
on  the  land  before  its  strength  had  leaked  out.  I  began  to 
get  registered  stock,  and  now  I  sell  a  blooded  cow  at  nine 
months  for  $40  and  an  old-fashioned  rancher  comes  along 


274  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

and  wonders  why  he  has  to  feed  a  scrub  cow  for  two  years 
and  sell  her  for  less  than  $40. 

"An  old-fashioned  farmer  has  thirty  milch  cows  and 
works  eighteen  hours  a  day  taking  care  of  them  and  milking 
them  and  can  make  no  money.  An  up-to-date  man  comes 
along,  buys  the  place,  pays  $10  for  a  Babcock  tester  and 
buys  milk  scales.  Eight  away  he  gets  rid  of  ten  of  the  cows 
as  non-productive,  and  he  makes  more  with  two-thirds  of 
the  work." 

Jack's  disappointment  that  so  much  of  his  main  '  '  punch  " 
in  "The  Valley  of  the  Moon"  had  been  lost  by  wholesale 
deletion,  in  serial  publication,  was  mended  by  the  way  the 
published  book  was  received  by  the  agricultural  maga 
zines.  One  of  them  declared  that  it  "ought  to  be  adopted 
for  a  text  book  by  our  'back  to  the  farm/  missionaries. 
Besides  being  a  firstrate  love-story,  it  is  replete  with  knowl 
edge  of  rural  conditions.  "With  that  familiar  universal 
touch  of  Jack  London's,  this  book,  while  essentially  Cali- 
f  ornian,  applies  and  appeals  to  America,  at  large.  We  won 
der  that  it  has  not  been  made  a  part  of  the  curriculum  at  the 
agricultural  colleges.  It  is  worth  dozens  of  lectures  some 
times  delivered  to  students." 

"Why  isn't  'The  Valley  of  the  Moon'  the  'Great  Ameri 
can  Novel'!"  a  correspondent  wanted  to  know.  "It  lets 
light  in  upon  the  question  of  why  the  old  American  stock 
is  dying  out.  The  ignorant,  unlettered  foreigners,  Italians, 
Japanese,  Scandinavian,  and  the  rest,  crowd  out  the  good 
old  American,  because  the  American  will  not,  for  one 
thing,  if  he  can  help  it,  live  the  way  the  foreigner  does. 
And  because,  also,  the  American  will  not  use  his  head  for  the 
improvement  of  the  land.  Eesult,  the  carcass  of  the  good 
old  superior  American  fertilizes  his  own  land  for  the  crowd 
ing,  thrifty,  crafty  foreigner." 

That  one  man  is  more  fit  than  another  to  become  a  law 
giver,  Jack  London  has  laid  down  in  "The  Bones  of  Kahe- 
kili,"  written  five  months  before  he  died,  one  of  seven 


THE  BAD  YEAR  275 

stories  in  "On  the  Makaloa  Mat."  The  old  Hawaiian  com 
moner  asks : 

"Here  is  something  stronger  than  life,  stronger  than 
woman,  but  what  is  it — and  why?"  And  Jack,  over  and 
above  his  personal  desire  and  sacrifices  toward  the  masses, 
speaks  his  unwilling  but  inevitable  conclusion  through  the 
mouth  of  Hardman  Pool : 

"It  is  because  most  men  are  fools,  and  therefore  must 
be  taken  care  of  by  the  few  men  who  are  wise.  Such  is  the 
secret  of  chiefship.  In  all  the  world  are  chiefs  over  men. 
In  all  the  world  that  has  been  have  there  ever  been  chiefs, 
who  must  say  to  the  mary  fool  men:  'Do  this;  do  not  do 
that.  Work,  and  work  a/3  we  tell  you,  or  your  bellies  will 
remain  empty  and  you  will  perish.  .  .  .  You  must  be  peace- 
abiding  and  decent,  and  blow  your  noses.  You  must  be  early 
to  bed  of  nights,  and  up  early  in  the  morning  to  work  if 
you  would  have  beds  to  sleep  in  and  not  roost  in  trees  like 
the  silly  fowls.  This  is  the  reason  for  the  yam-planting 
and  you  must  plant  now.  We  say  now,  to-day,  and  not  pic 
nicking  and  hulaing  to-day  and  yam-planting  to-morrow 
or  some  other  day  of  the  many  careless  days.  .  .  .  All  this 
is  life  for  you,  because  you  think  but  one  day  at  a  time, 
while  we,  your  chiefs,  think  for  you  all  days  and  far  days 
ahead." 

And  the  old  man :  i  i  Yes,  it  is  sad  that  I  should  be  born 
a  common  man  and  live  all  my  days  a  common  man." 

To  which  Hardman  Pool:  "That  is  because  you  were 
of  yourself  common.  When  a  man  is  born  common,  and  is 
by  nature  uncommon,  he  rises  up  and  overthrows  the  chiefs 
and  makes  himself  chief  over  the  chiefs.  Why  do  you  not 
run  my  ranch,  with  its  many  thousands  of  cattle,  and  shift 
the  pastures  by  the  rainfall,  and  pick  the  bulls,  and  arrange 
the  bargaining  and  selling  of  the  meat  to  the  sailing  ships 
and  war  vessels  and  the  people  who  live  in  the  Honolulu 
houses,  and  fight  with  lawyers,  and  help  make  laws,  and 
even  tell  the  King  what  is  wise  for  him  to  do  and  what  is 


276  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

dangerous?  Why  does  not  any  man  do  this  that  I  do? 
Any  man  of  all  the  men  who  work  for  me,  feed  out  of  my 
hand,  and  let  me  do  their  thinking  for  them? — me,  who 
works  harder  than  any  of  them,  who  eats  no  more  than  any 
of  them,  and  who  can  sleep  on  no  more  than  one  lauhala  mat 
at  a  time  like  any  of  them  ? ' ' 

"I  am  out  of  the  cloud  .  .  ."  the  old  man  says.  "We 
are  the  careless  ones  of  the  careless  days  who  will  not  plant 
the  yam  in  season  if  our  alii  does  not  compel  us,  who  will  not 
think  one  day  for  ourselves.  .  .  . ' ' 

There  were  timely  trips  into  the  interior — Sacramento, 
Modesto,  and  to  the  University  of  California  stock  farm  at 
Davis.  Eliza  Shepard  went  along  further  to  imbibe  and 
abet  the  game  her  brother  wanted  to  play;  and  Jack  came 
speedily  to  accept  her  judgment  in  the  selection  of  livestock, 
for  her  choices  came  to  be  the  prize-winners  at  State  and 
County  fairs. 

A  concrete-block  silo,  twelve  feet  in  diameter,  the  first 
of  two,  and  the  first  of  their  kind  in  California,  was  rising 
half  a  hundred  feet  into  the  air  near  the  old  cowbarns.  Jack 
put  his  own  and  his  neighbors'  corn  into  the  first  silo  that 
was  finished,  and  neglected  his  writing  to  take  a  hand  in  the 
fascinating  work  of  feeding  the  cutter.  Houseguests  and 
servants  alike  were  unable  to  keep  out  of  the  busy  scene, 
and  remained  to  help.  Their  host  boasted :  ' l  No  material 
comes  up  the  hill  except  cement.  My  own  machinery  has 
done  the  crushing  of  the  rock  that  my  own  tools  and  dyna 
mite  have  got  out  of  my  own  land,  and  that  my  own  draft 
animals  have  hauled.  My  own  mixer  has  made  the  mortar. 
My  ten-inch  drain-tile  for  the  alfalfa  fields  yonder,  has  been 
made  right  here  on  the  ground.  And  all  this  paraphernalia 
will  build  a  dam  at  the  mouth  of  that  natural  sink  up- 
mountain,  to  impound  7,000,000  gallons  of  water  for  irri 
gation.  And  think  of  the  pressure  for  fire  protection  I1' 

The  "  piggery "  which  Jack  invented,  and  which  was 
built  during  our  fall  Roamer  cruise,  became  famous  the 


THE  BAD  YEAR  277 

world  over,  not  only  among  farmers  but  with  curious  lay 
men  as  well.  Entirely  of  rock  and  concrete,  it  is  on  a  cir 
cular  plan,  surrounding,  with  graveled  driveway  between, 
a  handsome  tower  wherein  feed  is  mixed  and  distributed 
to  the  "  suites "  of  apartments,  with  their  individual  run 
ways,  that  came  to  house,  firstj  the  white  Ohio  Improved 
Chester  hogs,  and  later,  Jack's  choice  of  what  he  deemed 
a  sturdier  breed  for  our  climate,  the  red  Duroc  Jerseys. 
A  system  of  flushing  and  antiseptizing  both  here  and  in 
the  barns,  rendered  premises  and  vicinity  "  sweet  as  a 
nut,"  to  quote  an  English  visitor  who  lately  registered  in 
the  tower  guest-book.  Crowning  a  knoll  for  perfect  drain 
age,  surrounded  by  blossomy  madrono  trees  with  bark  like 
Korean  red  lacquer  and  glossy  leaves  so  resembling  the 
magnolia,  this  farm  yard  "  sermon  in  stone "  is  an  object 
of  distinct  beauty. 

Jack  had  conceived  the  idea  of  demonstrating  that  he 
could  restore  exhausted  grainfields  by  a  system  of  terracing 
on  a  large  scale — in  his  own  words, '  *  farming  on  the  level. ' T 

"You  increase  the  organic  content  by  levelling,  pre 
venting  the  destructive  erosive  effects  that  draw  from  it 
the  organic  content — so  that  instead  of  one-tenth  of  one 
meager  crop  a  year  you  can  grow  three  rich  crops  a  year. 

"The  hillsides  are  first  ploughed  along  contour  lines, 
and  at  intervals,  depending  on  the  slope  of  the  land,  balks, 
or  small  ridges,  are  thrown  up.  The  process  is  slow,  but 
its  advantages  from  the  start  are  great.  Eains  are  held 
back  to  sink  into  the  soil  instead  of  rushing  down  the  hill 
sides,  tearing  out  great  gullies  and  carrying  rich  soil  down 
the  streams  to  the  ocean.  .  .  .  We  have  been  letting  our 
rich  hillsides  go  to  waste,  and  by  ignorant  cultivation  have 
increased  erosion  rather  than  prevented  it.  The  method  I 
have  outlined  will  restore  even  impoverished  hillsides  and 
turn  them  into  productive  fields. ' ' 

A  dozen  acres  of  old  French  prune  trees  were  brought 
up  to  standard ;  vineyards,  once  famous,  that  had  gone  too 


278      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

long  neglected,  were  uprooted  and  given  over  to  barley; 
and  the  barley  was  planted  with  inoculated  vetch. 

Beehives,  likewise  ducks,  pigeons,  geese,  chickens,  and 
a  few  pheasants,  made  their  appearance  on  the  Hill  place 
as  a  side  issue. 

I  heard  Jack  say  that  ' '  the  best  blocks  of  vineyard  did 
not  have  more  than  seventy-five  per  cent,  of  the  vines  stand 
ing  when  I  took  over  the  ranch.  In  some  cases  three  out 
of  every  five  vines  were  missing."  But  in  time  he  had 
those  "best  blocks"  yielding  as  formerly. 

And  here  are  his  intentions  with  regard  to  fertilizing: 

"The  Chinese  have  farmed  for  forty  centuries  without 
using  commercial  fertilizer.  I  am  rebuilding  worn-out  hill 
side  lands  that  were  worked  out  and  destroyed  by  our 
wasteful  California  pioneer  farmers.  I  am  not  using  com 
mercial  fertilizer.  I  believe  the  soil  is  our  one  indestructi 
ble  asset,  and  by  green  manures,  nitrogen-gathering  cover 
crops,  animal  manures,  rotation  of  crops,  proper  tillage 
and  draining,  I  am  getting  results  which  the  Chinese  have 
demonstrated  for  forty  centuries. 

"We  are  just  beginning  to  farm  in  the  United  States. 
The  Chinese  knew  the  how  but  not  the  why.  We  know  the 
why,  but  we're  dreadfully  slow  getting  around  to  the  how." 

Before  long  this  modern  husbandman  had  revolutionized 
the  sleepy  neighborhood,  to  say  nothing  of  his  employes 
upon  whom  he  sprung  timesheets,  rigorously  insisting  that 
these  be  properly  filled  in  each  night.  "Any  man  who  isn't 
willing  to  give  an  account  of  his  work  and  time,  is  welcome 
to  go  down  hill,"  was  Jack's  ultimatum. 

A  blacksmith  in  the  village  went  out  of  business.  Jack 
relieved  him  of  the  entire  establishment,  which  was  in 
stalled  in  one  of  our  cool  winery  buildings,  pleasantly  shaded 
by  a  "spreading  chestnut  tree,"  while  a  horseshoer  and 
general  blacksmith  was  added  to  the  payroll.  The  village 
thought  little  about  the  transaction  until  a  paper  in  a  rival 
community  came  out  with : 


THE  BAD  YEAR  279 

* '  Good  boy,  Jack !  Why  not  make  another  trip  with  your 
wagon  and  take  the  rest  of  Glen  Ellen  up  to  the  ranch  1 ' ' 

Then  and  always,  when  asked  "What  do  you  call  your 
place ?"  the  owner  replied,  "The  Ranch  of  Good  Inten 
tions.  ' '  Develop  it  as  he  might,  it  seemed  to  remain  only  in 
its  merest  beginning,  in  view  of  his  ultimate  hopes. 

An  old  neighbor,  whose  boundaries  carve  sharply  into 
our  property,  often  suggested  that  Jack  buy  him  out,  lock, 
stock,  and  barrel.  "But  there  are  too  many  buildings  on 
your  place,  for  one  thing, "  Jack  would  object.  "It  would 
cost  too  much  to  demolish  them ! ' '  But  once  he  said :  "  If  I 
ever  do  buy  the  Wegener  place,  I'll  turn  it  over,  buildings 
and  all,  to  my  intellectual  hobo  friends.  The  community 
would  wax,  and  oh,  my ! "  As  he  had  written  to  Anna : 

"Some  day  I  shall  build  an  establishment,  invite  them 
all,  and  turn  them  loose  upon  one  another.  Such  a  mingling 
of  castes  and  creeds  and  characters  could  not  be  duplicated. 
The  destruction  would  be  great !" 

It  has  always  been  a  sadness  to  me  how,  as  before 
hinted,  Jack's  most  intimate  acquaintances,  given  every  op 
portunity  to  view  the  magnitude  of  his  interest  in  agricul 
ture,  without  exception  discounted  the  importance  of  it  to 
him,  and  vice  versa.  In  all  the  memorial  gatherings  met  so 
generously  after  his  passing,  it  never  entered  the  mind  of 
a  single  friend  to  whom  Jack  had  expounded  his  dear  am 
bition,  to  make  mention  of  the  great  book  he  had  begun  to 
write  upon  the  mountain  fields.  I,  aghast  at  the  vital  omis 
sion,  protested,  and  appealed  to  the  lovers  of  his  memory 
not  to  forget.  The  explanation  dawned  upon  me  before 
ever  it  was  put  in  ^ords  by  one,  a  sociologist,  who  had  no 
inkling  of  the  bearing  of  agronomy  upon  economics : 

"You  see,  Jack's  agriculture  did  not  impress  me  as  it 
should  have  done — probably  because  I  have  no  interest  in 
agriculture. ' ' 

In  September  we  made  our  first  visit  to  the  State  Fair 
at  Sacramento.  Jack  was  averse  to  showing  his  own  stock, 


280  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

holding  that  putting  an  animal  in  ' l  show  condition ' '  was  a 
harmful  process.  His  presence  at  the  Fair  was  for  the  pur 
pose  of  getting  in  touch  with  "the  other  fellow"  to  see 
what  he  was  doing  in  the  matter  of  raising  draft  horses, 
beef  cattle  and  hogs. 

It  was  during  this  absence  Jack  told  me  that  at  intervals 
for  months  past  he  had  had  warning  flutters  in  the  region  of 
the  heart  that  gave  him  sudden  moments  of  foreboding. 
" Haven't  you  noticed  that  I  have  got  into  the  habit  of 
laying  my  palm  over  my  heart!"  he  asked.  "I  didn't  real 
ize  I  was,  until  I  happened  to  catch  myself  at  it."  He  also 
told  me  that  there  had  been  no  report,  after  an  examination 
by  their  physician,  from  a  certain  life  insurance  firm  to 
whom  he  had  applied  some  time  back  for  an  additional 
policy.  I,  to  offset  the  tremor  of  my  own  heart  at  his  in 
telligence,  eliminated  one  reason  after  another  for  his  con 
dition,  and  finally  asked  if  it  might  be  laid  to  his  excessive 
cigarette  inhaling.  But  he  did  not  take  to  the  diagnosis. 
After  a  couple  of  years  the  symptoms  disappeared. 

In  mid-October  we  "joy-sailed  on  the  good,  old,  dear, 
and  forever  dear  Roomer,"  to  quote  her  skipper,  spending 
one  of  our  most  care-free  seasons,  with  the  resilience  that 
fortunate  souls  exhibit  after  an  excess  of  work  and  emo 
tional  endurance.  From  my  diary:  "Let's  look  at  the 
chart  we've  sailed  off,"  says  Jack  at  two  p.  m.,  after  our 
exciting  run  in  a  howling  norther.  Things  broke;  we 
missed  stays  twice  on  one  tack,  and  went  aground  in  the 
glistening  tules,  that  were  laid  flat  by  the  wind.  Spouting 
surf  on  lee  shores.  A  big  scow  aground.  Ducks  flying  low. 
Sierras  white  with  snow,  and  Mt.  Diablo  and  its  range  clear- 
cut  sapphire.  We  did  not  have  a  ribbon  of  canvas  on  the 
Roomer  except  three-reefed  spanker  and  our  dandy  jib. 
She  eats  right  up  into  the  wind  with  that  big  jib. 

' '  In  spite  of  all  that  has  happened  this  year, ' '  Jack  re 
viewed,  surveying  water  and  sky  with  calm,  sure  eyes, 
"somehow  it  seems  now  as  if  it  has  been  one  of  my  hap- 


THE  BAD  YEAR  281 

piest — at  least,  when  I  think  what  I  have  started  on  the 
Beauty  Eanch ! — At  any  rate, ' '  he  finished,  pulling  the  old 
Tarn  over  his  fore-top,  "  there  has  been  no  boredom  in  it 
all — no  danger  of  rusting/' 

One  morning  in  the  midst  of  his  work  he  burst  out : 

"  I  'm  going  to  live  a  hundred  years ! ' ' 

"Yes!    Why!" 

*  '  Because  I  want  to ! " 

"It's  a  good  reason — couldn't  be  bettered.    But  let  me 
remind  you  that  you're  likely  to  become  a  widower!" 

'  '  That  is  a  consideration, ' '  reaching  for  me.    "  I'll  have 
to  think  it  over!" 


CHAPTER  XXXVII 

NEW  YORK  ;  MEXICO  ;  ROAMER 
1914 

FOR  us,  ending  one  year  and  beginning  another  aboard 
ship  was  the  acme  of  good  fortune.  The  holidays, 
spent  partly  ashore  while  the  cook  remained  to  guard  the 
Roomer  where  she  lay  moored  to  one  city  wharf  or  another, 
were  full  of  cheer.  The  "Porchclimber"  episode  settled, 
our  future  looked  brighter,  though  Jack  remarked  more 
than  once:  "I'm  riding  to  a  fall,  financially;  but  I'm  not 
worrying — you've  never  yet  seen  me  stay  down  long.  I'll 
work  harder  than  ever!" 

Our  New  Year  was  ushered  in  at  the  Saddle  Rock  restau 
rant.  Two  nights  before  Christmas,  with  a  big  southeaster 
blowing,  Jack  and  Nakata  got  me  into  an  evening  gown 
aboard  the  yacht  where  she  rolled  at  Lombard  Street  wharf 
in  San  Francisco,  then  rowed  me  to  a  float,  from  which  we 
mounted  to  water-front  street  and  taxi,  to  attend  the  house- 
warming  of  friends  uptown.  In  the  early  hours  we  were 
back,  and  casting  off,  on  the  way  to  Sausalito.  A  terrific 
ebb  was  running,  and  Jack  breathed  a  sigh  of  relief  when  he 
had  his  vessel  safely  clear  of  the  docks  and  speeding  on 
the  ebb,  before  the  gale,  under  a  little  shred  of  a  reefed  jig 
ger.  When,  not  far  from  Sausalito,  we  ran  into  the  great 
run-out  that  tears  down  through  Raccoon  Straits  to  the 
Golden  Gate,  it  seemed  as  if  the  tiny  yawl  could  not  possibly 
make  it  across.  Jack,  in  his  most  congenial  element,  was  on 
the  pinnacle  of  exhilaration.  And  in  fifty-five  minutes  the 
thirty-foot  craft,  under  that  rag  of  canvas,  had  made  a 

282 


NEW  YORK;  MEXICO;  ROAMER  283 

passage  that  regularly  takes  the  huge  screw-ferryboats 
thirty-five. 

Threading  his  way  among  the  tossing  sloops  and 
schooners  and  motor  boats  at  anchor  off  the  yacht  clubs 
at  Sausalito,  Jack  navigated  over  the  mud  flats,  well  on  the 
way  into  Mill  Valley,  where  in  the  falling  tide  he  laid  the 
Roamer  in  the  mud  and  went  to  sleep  for  the  afternoon, 
upon  his  lips  the  contented  murmur,  "This  is  the  Life! 
WeVe  got  all  others  skinned  to  death,  Mate!"  The  next 
day,  Christmas,  Nakata  rowed  us  to  a  railroad  station  on 
the  shore,  and  we  dined  with  friends  in  Mill  Valley.  And  on 
the  26th  we  were  cruising  once  more. 

While  lying  off  Point  Eichmond,  Jack  developed  an  ear 
ache,  and  with  bandaged  head  called  upon  a  doctor.  In  no 
time  the  dailies  came  out  with  an  exciting  story  of  how,  in 
a  blow,  Jack  London  had  been  knocked  senseless  by  the 
mainboom,  while  his  wife  bravely  and  cleverly  brought  the 
vessel  to  safe  anchorage!  Jack  was  aggrieved  out  of  all 
apparent  proportion  to  the  matter;  but  the  reason  was  that 
he  so  especially  prided  himself  upon  never  having  unsea- 
rnanlike  accidents. 

He  became  interested  in  Richmond  real  estate  to  the 
extent  of  buying  a  lot,  thereby  branding  himself  as  a 
"  booster "  for  the  new  harbor  subdivision  of  the  Ellis 
Landing  and  Dock  Company. 

Just  as  we  began  congratulating  ourselves  that  certain 
hindrances  had  been  overridden,  and  upon  the  general  out 
look  for  the  New  Year,  fresh  trouble  broke  that  necessitated 
Jack 's  jumping  out  for  New  York  within  twenty-four  hours, 
leaving  the  yacht  at  San  Rafael,  where  the  ill  news  had 
found  us  looking  over  ground  familiar  to  our  childhood. 
There  was  much  I  must  attend  to  at  home  owing  to  the 
suddenness  of  his  departure,  and  so  our  first  long  separa 
tion  took  place. 

"While  I'm  straightening  out  this  snarl,  I  can  be  look 
ing  into  other  details  that  need  attention,  such  as  advances 


284  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

from  the  publishers, "  Jack  reminded  me.  "I'll  be  having 
good  news  for  you  soon,  I  hope."  He  often  arranged  for 
advances,  either  in  bulk,  or  in  monthly  payments,  upon  con 
templated  work. 

The  "snarl/7  which  took  him  over  a  month  to  smooth 
out,  was  with  reference  to  dramatic  rights  in  one  of  his 
novels.  An  old  friend  had  held  these  rights  for  some  years 
without  having  made  a  successful  showing.  Moving  pic 
tures  had  never  been  considered  in  the  days  Jack  had  signed 
contracts  for  speaking  performances,  and  there  were  men 
who  tried  to  befog  the  issue;  hence  it  behooved  Jack,  now 
interested  in  cinema  productions,  to  clear  his  way  of  mis 
understanding. 

But  his  friend  had  entered  into  a  dramatic  contract  for 
a  production  of  the  novel  in  question,  and  borrowed  money 
against  future  box  office  receipts,  which  later  did  not  appear 
to  be  imminent.  The  agent  was  willing  to  release  the  play 
wright,  but  to  the  tune  of  forty  thousand  dollars.  Jack, 
appalled  by  the  ridiculous  sum,  bent  all  his  powers  to  beat 
down  the  ' '  robber. ' '  It  took  him  four  weeks,  and  in  the  end 
he  resorted  to  what  he  called  his  "play  acting "  to  bring 
about  the  signing  of  a  "decent"  release  of  the  rights. 
Early  in  the  combat,  I  would  have  this  sort  of  message: 
"Outlook  dark,"  or  "Situation  ticklish,"  or  "Nothing  good 
to  write."  But  his  old  unnatural  condition  when  in  New 
York  seemed  to  be  absent. 

"To  hell  with  New  York,"  he  wrote  in  the  midst  of  this 
and  other  difficulties  that  beset.  "I  am  here  to  master  this 
Babylon  and  its  sad  cave-dwellers,  not  to  be  mastered!" 

Later:  "Hereafter,  either  before  or  after  Roamer 
winter  trip,  my  impression  is  that  you  and  I  will  spend  a 
month  in  New  York. ' ' 

One  night  in  a  triple  collision  of  taxicabs,  he  came  near 
losing  his  life.  A  certain  manager  of  burlesque  had  taken 
him  to  the  playhouse,  and  afterward  introduced  him  to 
the  leading  lights,  three  of  whom  the  two  men  undertook 


NEW  YORK;  MEXICO;  ROAMER  285 

to  escort  to  their  homes.  When  the  cars  crashed  Jack  found 
himself  at  the  bottom  of  the  heap  of  kindling-wood  that  had 
been  his  cab,  his  mouth  full  of  glass,  and  with  a  sense 
of  suffocation,  since  the  other  four  passengers  con 
tributed  to  the  weight.  Aside  from  minor  cuts  and  bruises, 
the  party  escaped  uninjured,  and  in  some  way  avoided  re 
vealing  their  identity,  so  that  the  newspaper  clippings  Jack 
sent  lacked  all  names.  The  theatrical  man  longed  to  have 
the  event  featured  with  "  scare-head "  lines,  for  the  adver 
tisement  of  his  star,  but  Jack  would  have  none  of  it. 

"I'd  have  looked  well,"  he  grumbled  to  me,  "with  the 
report  flashed  all  over  the  country  that  I'd  been  *  joy-riding' 

with  a  bunch  af  actresses ! I've  never  been  joy-riding  in 

my  life, ' '  he  teased ; ' '  but  I  'm  going  some  time,  for  I  '11  never 
be  satisfied  until  I  come  home  to  you  with  a  pink-satin 
slipper  in  my  pocket!" 

Whatever  else  Jack  London  did  or  did  not  do  in  New 
York  City,  he  always  spent  much  time  upon  the  theatres. 
About  this  time  he  enthusiastically  applauded  the  idea  of 
the  Little  Theatre,  and  hoped  that  San  Francisco  would 
take  up  the  idea.  Some  time  before  the  breaking  of  the 
Great  War,  friends  were  promulgating  a  widely  ramified 
plan  for  a  new  opera  house  and  conservatory  in  San  Fran 
cisco,  and  Jack  made  regular  contributions  to  the  pro 
moters.  So  far,  nothing  has  come  of  it. 

Having  succeeded  in  obtaining  a  "decent"  release  of  the 
dramatic  rights  in  his  book,  and  made  some  very  satisfac 
tory  agreements  for  New  York,  he  wired:  "General  future 
never  looked  brighter." 

A  word  as  to  the  "play-acting"  which  caused  the  "rob 
ber"  to  throw  up  his  hands,  or,  rather  put  his  hand  to 
the  signing  of  the  "decent  release."  Jack,  partly  as  a 
whim,  partly  in  order  to  compose  undisturbed,  had  hidden 
himself  in  a  notorious  hostelry  of  the  "theatrical  tender 
loin."  When  he  had  telephoned  to  his  publisher  to  send  his 
money,  that  person  cried  out,  "Great  Scott,  man!  What 


286      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

are  you  doing  in  a  house  like  that!    I'll  have  to  bring  it  my 
self  I" 

Jack  decided  to  inveigle  the  enemy  into  his  room.  He  en 
deavored  to  turn  the  tables,  but  Jack,  pleading  indisposi 
tion,  also  that  he  was  too  rushed  to  come  out,  since  he 
must  leave  for  California  sooner  than  he  had  planned,  con 
trived  to  gain  the  other's  consent  to  call  at  an  early  fore 
noon  hour.  He  then  prepared  the  stage  and  made  up  for 
the  impish  part  he  intended  to  play: 

"You  should  have  seen  me,"  he  giggled,  "I  was  a 
sight  to  throw  the  fear  of  God  into  any  highwayman  of  his 
feather.  I  had  sized  him  up,  you  see. 

"For  two  days  I  purposely  let  my  beard  grow,  and  you 
know  how  black  it  comes  out.  I  opened  my  pa  jama-coat  so 
that  the  mat  of  hair  showed  on  my  chest.  And  of  course  I 
left  out  my  upper  teeth,  mussed  up  my  head  and  wore  an 
eyeshade.  I  was  not  pretty. 

"So,  when  the  clerk  'phoned  up  that  he  was  below,  I 
said,  'Send  him  right  up.'  He  answered,  'he's  stepped 
outside. '  ' Outside, '  says  I, ' what  f or ? '  'I  don 't  know — he 
said  he'd  wait  for  you  there.  'Tell  him,'  I  ordered,  'That 
I'm  in  bed,  and  can't  come  down.' 

"Well,  when  his  tap  came,  I  sat  up  in  bed,  and  the  high- 
arm  chair  I  had  placed  for  him  had  its  back  to  the  door  so 
that  if  he  tried  to  escape  me  he'd  be  in  an  awkward  posi 
tion  getting  out  of  his  chair  to  do  it. It  sounds  awful, 

I  can  see  from  your  face,  Mate, ' '  Jack  interpolated.  i '  But 
remember,  I  had  wrestled  for  weeks  with  him.  He  had  even 
agreed  to  my  figures  and  terms,  and  promised  to  send  me 
the  release,  and  then  I  would  wait  for  days  without  a  word, 
marking  time,  when  I  wanted  to  go  home.  It  was  my  sheer 
whimsey  to  bring  him  to  his  senses  in  this  fantastic  way.  My 
God !  It  was  ten  thousand  times  more  legitimate  than  his 
slimy  methods  and  those  of  his  kind ! 

"To  get  back.  He  came  in,  trying  not  to  look  queer 
when  he  saw  the  object  I  was — haggard  from  the  dark 


NEW  YORK;  MEXICO;  ROAMER  287 

growth  on  my  chin  and  neck,  hair  showing  on  my  chest,  and 
a  ghastly  toothless  smile  of  welcome!  In  his  hand  was 
the  document,  which  I  took  from  him  and  glanced  over. 
And  every  little  while  I  looked  aside  to  one  or  the  other  of 
my  fists,  as  if  gloating  over  them.  As  I  talked  with  him 
without  appearing  to  study  him  I  took  in  his  sick,  scared 
face  and  soul.  He'd  have  given  anything  not  to  have  got 
himself  into  that  chair. 

11  And  then,  I  went  over  the  whole  business  again,  all  we 
had  talked  in  our  many  interviews,  and  he  finally  consented 
to  release  for  a  tithe  of  his  original  claims.  He  said : 

"  1 1  '11  go  right  to  my  office  to  make  the  change,  and  send 
you  the  agreement  immediately. ' 

"I  had  waited  for  just  that,  and  didn't  mean  that  he 
should  elude  me  again.  Said  I : 

"  'You'll  sign  that  paper  right  here  on  that  table,  before 
you  leave  this  room!' — and  when  he  protested,  I  went  on, 
closing  and  unclosing  my  fists,  to  tell  him  just  exactly  what 
I  would  do  to  him  if  he  refused.  He  looked  this  way  and 
that,  at  the  telephone,  and  half  around  at  the  door,  and 
knew  his  situation  for  precisely  what  I  had  made  it.  He 
signed  the  release  and  left  it  with  me.  .  .  .  And  as  it  is, 
it  will  take  me  months  to  pay  him,  month  by  month. ' ' 

A  little  ill  news  greeted  Jack's  return — the  best  young 
shorthorn  bull  had  broken  his  neck,  and  hog  cholera  had 
carried  off  nearly  all  his  blooded  hogs. 

"I  always  seem  to  have  to  build  twice — everything  I 
undertake,"  Jack  said  thoughtfully. 

In  his  workroom  again,  The  Little  Lady  of  the  Big 
House  was  begun,  in  which  were  exploited  his  maturing  con 
cepts  on  farming  and  stockbreeding.  Many  readers  take  for 
granted  that  the  "Big  House"  was  copied  from  Jack's  Wolf 
House.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  a  picture  of  Mrs.  Phoebe  A. 
Hearst's  home  at  Pleasanton,  California,  was  roughly  the 


288  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

model  for  that  of  his  hero  and  heroine  on  an  imaginary 
ranch  in  the  interior  foothills. 

Margaret  Smith  Cobb,  a  poet  of  the  northern  California 
forest  country,  whose  verse  Jack  had  been  the  means  of 
placing  with  eastern  magazines,  sent  me  the  fragmentary 
thoughts  given  below.  Jack,  to  whom  I  forwarded  them, 
commented:  "The  poem  is  most  sweet,  most  beautiful, 
most  true.  Tell  Margaret  Cobb  the  same,  for  me.  I  care 
not  to  utter  another  word  on  that  sad  topic." 

"Love,  let  us  wander,  you  and  I, 

Where  but  charred  embers  and  pale  ashes  lie ; 

Here  where  my  dreams  and  fancies  took  still  shape, 

In  all  their  glory,  laid  in  wood  and  stone. 

****** 

Here,  blow  thy  kisses,  many,  for  a  stair, 

That  we  may  rise  where  was  thy  line  of  rooms 

Booms  for  thyself  alone — we  had  them  thus, 
Where  none  might  enter  but  the  moon  and  I. 

Dear  love,  the  smoke  is  yet  about  my  heart, 
The  crackle  of  the  fire  yet  sears  my  brain. 
— You  will  be  kind,  and  dream  and  care  no  more, 
Nor  sorrow  for  what  was  my  house  of  dreams. ' ' 

About  this  time  it  was  rumored  that  the  Prohibitionists 
wanted  to  nominate  Jack  London  for  President.  He,  when 
asked  about  it,  gave  his  usual  breezy  consent :  * i  Sure — I  '11 
run  for  anything,  if  it  will  help,  especially  if  there's  no 
chance  of  my  being  elected!" 

A  grapejuice  company  was  formed  for  the  manufacture, 
on  a  large  scale,  of  the  incomparable  unf  ermented  drink  that 
we  were  already  pressing,  from  wine  grapes,  for  our  own 
table.  Jack  was  elated  over  the  prospect.  It  created  a  new 
market  for  his  ranch  product,  and  by  the  same  effort  fur 
thered  the  cause  of  prohibition.  He  drank  regularly  of  the 


11)15.     AT    WAIKIKI,    HONOLULU 


1913.      ABOARD   THE    "ROAMER" 


NEW  YORK;  MEXICO;  ROAMER  289 

clear,  natural  juice  that  bore  so  little  resemblance  to  the 
commercial  article  that  smacks  of  stewed  fruit. 

"Government  recipe,  my  dear,  government  recipe !"  he 
would  gurgle,  holding  his  little  glass  to  the  light.  "Free 
advice  to  every  one — and  they  wonder  how  I  find  out  these 
things  I" 

There  was  crookedness  in  the  grapejuice  company, 
as  there  had  been  in  the  past  year's  ventures.  Jack,  who 
had  no  money  in  this,  only  his  name,  was  ultimately  sued  for 
$41,000 ;  but  the  case  never  came  to  trial. 

With  travel  in  his  eye,  Jack  had  been  plotting  to  con 
vince  an  eastern  weekly  of  the  value  of  a  series  of  articles 
on  all  the  world,  and  there  was  talk  of  having  him  begin  with 
Japan.  I  was  joyous  at  the  prospect  of  realizing  our  old 
hope  to  visit  those  fascinating  isles  together.  But  the 
Mexican  fracas  in  the  spring  of  1914  came  in  between  and 
the  other  articles  never  were  undertaken.  Hearst  had 
asked  Jack  the  preceding  autumn  if  he  would  go  to  Mexico 
in  case  trouble  broke.  When  the  time  came,  there  was 
some  disagreement  upon  the  price,  and  Jack  went  for 
Collier's  instead.  This  constituted  no  infringement  of  his 
fiction  contract,  so  long  as  he  delivered  the  appointed  meas 
ure  of  the  fiction. 

"And  now, "  he  said,  hopefully,  "I  may  be  able  to  redeem 
myself  as  a  war  correspondent,  after  what  I  was  held  back 
from  doing  by  the  Japanese  Army!'' 

If  he  had  been  able  to  foretell  how  slim  was  the  chance  of 
attaining  his  wish,  he  would  not  have  gone.  As  it  was, 
Collier's  wired  to  know  how  long  it  would  take  him  to  make 
ready  to  start  for  Galveston,  Texas,  should  they  telegraph 
him  to  go.  ' '  Twenty-four  hours, ' '  was  the  response.  Came 
the  bombardment  of  the  Naval  Academy  at  Vera  Cruz, 
and  on  April  16  the  summons  arrived.  We  left  Glen  Ellen 
the  next  morning,  and  Oakland  the  same  afternoon. 

"I'll  see  you  on  your  way  as  far  as  Galveston,"  ventured 


290  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

I,  taking  for  granted  that  Galveston  would  be  the  end  of  my 
journey. 

"You  can't  get  ready  in  time!"  Jack  said,  but  with  a 
bright  expectancy  that  was  balm  to  my  apprehension,  for  I 
had  not  been  enthusiastic  about  his  going  under  fire. 

"Oh,  can't  II"  and  out  came  the  trunks. 

"Well,"  he  paused  from  his  own  preparations  to  glad 
den  my  heart,  "if  you  get  that  far,  maybe  we  can  get  you  to 
Vera  Cruz  at  least — even  if  you  have  to  stay  there  when  we 
go  on  march  to  the  City  of  Mexico. ' ' 

Shortly  before  leaving,  Jack  handed  me  a  copy  of  '  *  The 
Valley  of  the  Moon,"  inscribed : 

"Dear  My- Woman: 

"This  is  our  'Book  of  Love,'  here  in  our  *  Valley  of  the  Moon,' 
where  we  have  lived  and  known  our  love  ever  since  that  day  you 
rode  with  me  to  the  divide  of  the  Napa  hills — Ay,  and  before  that, 
before  that." 

It  was  at  Galveston  that  Richard  Harding  Davis  in 
the  second  instance  rendered  Jack  London  a  service.  Sev 
eral  days  had  passed,  the  date  of  departure  with  General 
Frederick  Funston  was  nearing,  and  all  the  other  corre 
spondents  who  were  to  accompany  him  on  the  transport 
Kilpatrick  had  received  their  credentials  from  Washington 
and  were  gaily  making  ready.  Jack's  alone  seemed  to  be 
withheld,  for  Edgar  Sisson,  editor  of  Collier's,  kept  wiring 
Jack  to  the  effect  that  he  was  not  to  worry — everything 
would  reach  him  in  time. 

On  the  morning  of  the  transports'  sailing-date,  I  was 
shocked  from  sleep  and  upon  my  feet  by  a  burst  of  martial 
music  that  led  a  host  of  men  in  olive-drab  who  marched, 
with  brave,  ominous  sound,  along  the  sea-wall  drive.  Jack 
joined  me  at  the  window  and  silently  we  watched  the  stream 
of  human  life  go  down  to  the  gulf  in  ships.  Although  thrill 
ing  to  the  spectacle,  Jack  could  not  forget,  and  quoted  from 
Le  Gallienne's  "The  Illusion  of  War": 


NEW  YORK;  MEXICO;  ROAMER  291 

"  'War, 

I  abhor, 

And  yet  how  sweet 

The  sound  along  the  marching  street 

Of  drum  and  fife,  and  I  forget 

Wet  eyes  of  widows,  and  forget 

Broken  old  mothers,  and  the  whole 

Dark  butchery  without  a  soul.'  " 

As  the  morning  wore,  and  still  no  word  from  Washing 
ton,  we  became  genuinely  concerned.  Before  others,  Jack 
preserved  a  careless  demeanor;  but  when  he  looked  into  my 
eyes  I  saw  in  his  the  baffled,  pained  expression  that  he  must 
have  worn  in  childhood. 

"I  can't  understand  it,  I  can't  understand  it,"  he 
puzzled.  "Each  time  Pve  called  on  General  Funston,  his 
aide  has  courteously  put  me  off.  I  know  the  General  is  not 
well,  with  that  abscess  in  his  ear,  poor  devil ;  but  that  isn  't 
the  reason.  So  there  seems  to  be  simply  nothing  I  can  do. ' ' 

"I  don't  care  for  myself, "  he  would  reiterate.  "I 
want  to  make  good  to  Sisson,  whose  idea  it  was  for  me  to 
go  for  Collier 's.  I  don't  want  to  throw  him  down."  Pres 
ently,  having  dictated  to  me  his  final  letters,  and  sent  off  his 
Article  I  to  Collier's,  he  disappeared  downstairs,  mur 
muring  : 

"  'And  even  my  peace-abiding  feet 
Go  marching  down  the  marching  street, 
For  yonder,  yonder  goes  the  fife, 
And  what  care  I  for  human  life ! 

And  yet  'tis  all  unbannered  lies, 

A  dream  those  little  drummers  make. '  J 

An  hour  passed,  and  I  thought  to  reconnoitre  in  the 
lobby.  Emerging  from  the  elevator,  my  heart  leaped  to  see 
Jack  and  the  General's  aide,  Lieutenant  Ball,  each  grasping 


292  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

the  other  by  both  hands,  and  laughing  like  schoolboys  too 
pleased  for  words. 

"Why,  Mate,"  Jack  explained  as  we  hurried  upstairs  to 
put  the  last  touches  to  his  packing,  "it's  all  up  to  Richard 
Harding  Davis.  He  came  to  me  and  said  he  wondered  if  I 
knew  what  was  going  on.  You  remember  that  so-called 
'Good  Soldier'  canard  that  was  attributed  to  me?  It  has 
turned  up  again.  As  soon  as  Davis  mentioned  it,  I  could  see 
the  whole  trouble  in  a  flash.  We  looked  up  Lieutenant  Ball, 
and — well,  you  saw  us  when  you  came  down.  Funny  how 
pleased  he  was  to  get  the  thing  cleared  up!" 

At  luncheon,  our  table  was  near  that  of  the  General.  He 
and  his  aide  were  consulting  earnestly ;  and  after  a  while  the 
Lieutenant  came  toward  us.  Jack  rose,  and  the  two  re 
turned  to  the  General. 

' '  I  gave  him  my  word  of  honor  that  I  did  not  write  a  line 
of  that  canard, ' '  Jack  reported  to  me,  * '  and  upon  that  word 
he  takes  the  responsibility  of  adding  me  to  his  already  filled 
quota  of  correspondents.  It  seems  that  he  had  had  word 
from  Washington  that  my  going  was  left  up  to  him,  but  he, 
personally,  was  up  in  arms  about  the  canard." 

Next,  a  telegram  came  from  Secretary  Josephus  Daniels 
that  if  Jack  could  not  be  accommodated  on  the  transport, 
he  should  go  on  one  of  the  convoying  destroyers.  "And 
that  would  be  an  experience  new  to  me,  too,"  Jack  exulted. 
But  a  place  was  shaken  down  on  the  Kilpatrick,  on  which  he 
sailed  Friday  afternoon.  Any  regrets  that  I  may  have 
felt  at  my  inability  to  accompany  him  were  tempered  by 
the  fact  that  I  expected  to  depart  twenty-four  hours  later, 
and  to  meet  him  on  the  very  date  of  his  arrival  in  Vera 
Cruz.  This  was  made  possible  by  our  good  friend  Mr. 
Robert  T.  Burge,  who  had  proffered  me  passage  on  a 
vessel  of  the  Gulf  Coast  Steamship  Company,  of  which  he 
was  President. 

"I'm  only  too  glad  to  present  you  with  a  ticket,"  he 
smiled,  "but  for  goodness'  sake,  don't  go.  The  steamers 


NEW  YORK;  MEXICO;  ROAMER  293 

are  not  suitable  for  ladies '  travel.  .  .  .  But  go  if  you  really 
must!" 

Never  shall  I  forget  that  evening  the  little  old  Atlantis 
(wrecked  the  next  voyage)  approached  Vera  Cruz.  Across 
the  mighty  slopes  of  the  storied  land,  Orizaba  towered  blue 
against  a  sunset  sky ;  and  to  the  south  were  raised  the  tur 
rets  of  the  "far-flung  battle  line"  of  our  own  Navy,  its 
smoke  mingling  with  the  low  tropic  clouds.  "  War,  I  abhor, 
and  yet "  that  has  nothing  to  do,  per  se,  with  just  valua 
tion  of  the  magnificent  machinery  invented  by  brain  of 
man.  One  of  Jack's  Mexican  articles,  in  want  of  real  war 
news,  was  devoted  to  what  he  saw  at  Tampico's  oil-fields. 
Certain  radical  contemporaries  raged  against  him,  and  one, 
a  noted  socialist  writer,  accused  him  publicly  of  having  been 
subsidized  by  the  oil  interests — subsidized !  Jack  London ! 
None  but  a  stupid,  or  at  best  a  warped  creature,  it  would 
seem  to  those  who  knew  him,  could  seriously  conceive  such 
a  thing. 

"Me!  subsidized f"  Jack  stormed,  "My  worst  capital 
ist  enemies  have  done  me  the  honor  to  know  better  than  that. 
Why,  no  human  being  has  ever  dared  even  to  hint  sub^idi- 
zation  to  me,  thank  God!" 

Here  again,  friend  and  enemy  were  like  to  convict  him 
of  paradox.  Few  could  comprehend  that  universality  which 
made  him  grasp  the  whole  through  all  its  parts.  WTiile  de 
crying  war,  he  could  at  the  same  time  appreciate  the  roman 
tic  majesty  of  conquest,  hail  the  bunting  of  great  armadas, 
respect  the  courage  and  deeds  of  men  who  battled  according 
to  their  lights.  I  have  seen  him  almost  weep  over  the  ex 
ploits  of  British  admirals  and  fearless  midshipmen  of  old. 
"Look!"  he  would  cry,  following  me  with  a  dusty  tome 
in  his  hands,  "Listen  to  this,  and  this  .  .  .  this  is  the  sort 
of  stuff  that  went  into  the  making  of  you,  white  woman,  and 
me,  and  all  of  us  who  conquer  ourselves  and  our  environ 
ment  ! "  In  order  to  preserve  a  clear  view  of  Jack,  it  must 
be  held  in  mind  that  despite  the  warm  human  emotionalism 


294  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

of  him  he  always  came  to  rest  upon  his  intellectual  concep 
tions. 

Achievement,  to  him,  was  achievement,  though  he 
saw  all  around  and  under  it.  "I  take  off  my  hat  to  it,"  he 
would  say,  whether  inspecting  the  Culebra  Cut,  or  the  Har 
bor  of  Pago  Pago,  or  the  oil  fields  of  Tampico,  or  the  bene 
ficial  organization  thrown  into  Vera  Cruz  by  the  army 
and  navy.  "If  only  the  whole  world  could  be  made  so  clean 
and  orderly,"  he  said.  "If  such  cleanliness  and  order  could 
emanate,  not  from  the  idea  of  militarism,  but  as  a  social 
achievement.  Let  us  not  wantonly  destroy  these  wonderful 
machines,  these  great  world  assets,  that  produce  efficiently 
and  cheaply.  Let  us  control  them.  Let  us  profit  by  their 
efficiency  and  cheapness." 

Upton  Sinclair,  commending  upon  Jack's  detractors, 
made  no  mistake : 

"He  wrote  a  series  of  articles  that  caused  certain  radi 
cals  to  turn  from  him  in  rage.  But  I  felt  certain  that  the 
exponent  of  capitalist  efficiency  who  counted  upon  Jack 
London's  backing  was  a  child  playing  in  a  dynamite  fac 
tory.  ...  If  a  naval  officer  took  him  over  a  battleship,  he 
would  perceive  that  it  was  a  marvelous  and  thrilling  ma 
chine  ;  but  let  the  naval  officer  not  forget  that  in  the  quiet 
hours  of  the  night  Jack  London's  mind  would  turn  to  the 
white-faced  stokers,  to  whom  as  a  guest  of  an  officer  he  had 
not  been  introduced ! ' ' 

While  decrying  war,  in  time  of  danger  Jack  said: 
"Although  I  am  a  man  of  peace,  I  carry  an  automatic 
pistol.  I  might  meet  somebody  who  would  not  listen  to  my 
protestations  of  friendship  and  amity.  And  so  with  nations 
— we  're  a  long  way  from  universal  disarmament.  The  most 
peaceful  nation  to-day  is  likely  to  run  up  against  some  other 
nation  that  does  riot  want  peace.  It  would  look  as  if  we  shall 
need  armies  for  a  weary  while  to  come,  to  enforce  the  idea 
of  peace." 

He  appeared  to  be  surprised  at  the  personnel  of  the 


NEW  YORK;  MEXICO;  ROAMER  295 

army  and  its  officers.  I  must  confess  that  my  own 
general  idea  of  the  hard-bitten  "regular"  underwent  a 
revelation.  The  rank  and  file  were  of  a  youthful  and  mostly 
blond  Anglo-Saxon  type.  I  noticed  also  that  Jack  was 
pleased  to  find  many  of  the  officers  of  both  army  and  navy 
less  "machinely  crammed"  than  he  had  thought,  quite  able 
to  stand  on  their  own  feet  when  it  came  to  up-to-date,  inde 
pendent  thinking.  Jack  held  that  the  world  would  have 
no  more  big  wars  for  a  long  time.  "There  will  be  wars, 
at  one  time  or  another,"  he  believed.  "You  can't  change 
man  entirely  from  the  primitive,  fighting  animal  he  is.  But 
I  do  not  think  we  of  to-day  shall  see  a  big  war.  The  nations 
are  enlightened  enough  to  stop  short  of  that,  and  arbitrate 
their  differences."  I  borrow  this  from  The  Human  Drift: 

"War  is  passing.  It  is  safer  to  be  a  soldier  than  a  workingman. 
The  chance  for  life  is  greater  in  an  active  campaign  than  in  a 
factory  or  a  coal  mine.  In  the  matter  of  killing  war  is  growing  im 
potent,  and  this  in  the  face  of  the  fact  that  the  machinery  of  war 
was  never  so  expensive  in  the  past  nor  so  dreadful.  .  .  .  War  has 
become  a  joke.  Men  have  made  for  themselves  monsters  of  battle 
which  they  cannot  face  in  battle.  Not  only  has  war,  by  its  own 
evolution,  rendered  itself  futile,  but  man  himself,  with  greater  wis 
dom  and  higher  ethics,  is  opposed  to  war." 

But  his  uniformed  acquaintances,  sitting  in  the  portales 
of  the  old  Diligencias  Hotel,  sipping  Bacardi  rum  cocktails, 
disagreed : 

"Germany  will  start  something  before  a  great  while — 
see  if  she  doesn't.  And  she's  dying  to  get  her  hands  on  the 
United  States." 

For  once,  Jack  was  a  poor  prophet. 

Aside  from  his  old  associates  of  Jap-Russ  memories — 
E.  H.  Davis,  "Jimmy"  Hare,  "Bobbie"  Dunn,  Frederick 
Palmer — there  were  present  in  Vera  Cruz  the  veteran  war 
artist,  Zogbaum,  and  Eeuterdhal,  who  incidentally  made  a 
''Collier"  cover  from  a  sketch  of  Jack;  J.  B.  Connolly,  whom 


296  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

we  had  met  in  Boston;  Burge  McFall  (Associated  Press) ; 
John  T.  McCutcheon ;  Arthur  Ruhl,  Vincent  Starrett,  Stan- 
ton  Leeds,  Oliver  Madox  Hueffer  from  London,  and  Mrs. 
Dean,  the  "  Widow "  of  the  New  York  Town  Topics.  And 
from  Mexico  City,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  R.  H.  Murray,  representing 
the  New  York  World.  There  were  others,  whose  names 
escape  me. 

Jack  was  not  the  only  correspondent  who  chafed  under 
the  restraint  imposed  upon  the  army  in  Mexico ;  nor  did  the 
six  weeks  in  that  country  strengthen  his  already  weak 
regard  for  the  Latin  American.  When  the  report  came 
that  Huerta  had  slipped  out  of  Puerta  Mexico  to  the  south, 
the  whole  force  was  personally  in  mutinous  humor  with 
sitting  inactive.  Several  of  the  newspapermen  broke  parole 
and  made  their  precarious  way  to  the  capital,  where  some  of 
them  landed  in  prison.  Jack  had  declined  to  go,  saying  he 
did  not  feel  it  was  fair  to  General  Funston.  But  later  on 
he  mitigated  the  control  he  had  put  upon  himself,  and 
sailed  on  the  Mexicana  for  Tampico,  the  round-trip  cover 
ing  a  week.  He  would  not  hear  of  my  going  to  share  any 
possible  nip-and-tuck  hazard.  Realizing  that  I  would  be 
in  his  way,  I  did  not  urge,  but  remained,  with  Nakata,  at 
the  hotel.  Jack  charged  me,  in  case  orders  should  come 
for  the  army  to  march  for  Mexico  City,  to  buy  him  a  horse, 
and  have  all  in  readiness  for  him  to  go  when  he  should 
jump  back  from  Tampico.  He  also  had  me  wait  upon  the 
good  General,  to  discover  if  Nakata,  being  Japanese,  might 
go  along  in  such  event.  This  the  General  did  not  think 
advisable;  so  I  kept  alert  for  some  other  man. 

"If  there  is  any  advice  you  need,  Mate,"  Jack  adjured 
me,  "any  help  at  any  time,  apply  to  Richard  Harding 
Davis. "  Which  clinched  what  he  thought  of  the  "white 
man"  who  had  so  staunchly  declined  to  see  a  brother  cor 
respondent  labor  under  disadvantage.  Davis  died  shortly 
before  Jack;  and  six  days  before  Jack's  death,  I  heard  him 
deliver  an  impassioned  encomium  on  Davis  as  a  man. 


NEW  YORK;  MEXICO;  ROAMER  297 

There  being  no  military  action  about  which  to  write, 
Jack  employed  himself  turning  out  articles  upon  general 
observations  and  conditions  as  he  saw  them.  For  recrea 
tion,  there  were  horseback  rides  and  drives  within  the  pro 
scribed  radius ;  swims  at  Los  Banos ;  dinners  and  luncheons 
aboard  the  fleet  or  with  the  officers  of  army  and  navy 
ashore ;  shopping  for  laces,  Mexican  blankets,  serapes  and 
opals;  visits  to  the  little  provost  court  where  the  natives 
gaped  at  a  kindly  dispensation  of  justice  beyond  all  their 
conception;  dancing  in  patios  along  the  portales  of  the 
hotels;  bull  fights — General  Funston  watched  these  care 
fully,  and  allowed  no  horses  in  the  ring.  Aboard  the 
Solace,  the  hospital  ship,  we  found  the  wounded  boys  read 
ing  J.  B.  Connolly  and  Jack  London,  and  forgetful  of  suffer 
ing  in  their  pleasure  at  meeting  the  authors. 

Those  broken  boys  were  forerunners  of  the  thousands 
from  all  classes,  one  in  pain  and  purpose,  for  whom  in  the 
hospitals  of  Europe  Jack  was  to  fill  so  many  needs.  "  There, 
in  hospital/'  wrote  one,  "I  read  Burning  Daylight  .  .  . 
then  the  doctor  sent  me  to  Blighty.  There  I  left  Burning 
Daylight — in  the  midst  of  volumes  neat  and  clean  and  new, 
damp-stained  and  broken-backed,  I  left  it  .  .  ."  And  from 
our  friend  Major  Harry  Strange,  at  the  Front:  "I  always 
knew  somewhat,  and  Jack  taught  me  more,  and  war  has 
quite  convinced  me,  that  the  only  happiness  and  joy  worth 
while  is  in  service,  good,  big,  noble,  brave-hearted  service.'7 
The  Tommies  called  Jack 's  books  ' '  the  Jacklondons ' ' ;  and 
one  of  them,  a  hot-hearted  young  Celt,  wrote  me  from  Dub 
lin:  "I  only  know  that  the  man  who  comprehends  as  he 
did  is  always  right,  and  that  every  one  else  is  wrong." 
Which  voices  my  own  conviction.  Again  I  listen  to  Jack's 
appeal:  "Be  patient  with  me  in  the  little  things;  I  am 
really  patient  in  the  big  ones — I  have  not  winced  nor  cried 
aloud."  And  whereas  he  might  be  hasty  in  little  things 
and  little  judgments,  upon  the  big  issues  of  mankind  and  of 


298  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

his  own  affairs  in  relation  to  mankind,  he  laid  a  divining 
finger  that  could  not  touch  other  than  wisely  and  rightly. 

There  were  visits  to  San  Juan  de  Ulua,  with  its  spew 
of  filthy,  dehumanized  prisoners,  whom,  with  their  unthink 
able  dungeons,  our  navy  cleansed  and  deodorized.  Some  of 
these  unfortunates  had  no  faintest  notion  as  to  what,  if 
any,  offense  had  condemned  them  to  that  living  burial  below 
sea  level.  Others  recited  haltingly  the  most  trivial  of  inci 
dents  that  had  doomed  them  to  exist  for  years  without 
standing-room  or  light. 

"Pretty  awful,  isn't  it?-  -  But  don't  forget,  Mate," 
Jack,  who  never  forgot  anything,  would  point  out,  "that  we 
ourselves  aren't  half-civilized  yet,  in  our  treatment  of  con 
victs.  Also,  there's  such  a  thing  as  ' railroad'  still  existing 
in  the  land  of  the  free ! " 

All  this  time,  busy  working  and  playing  in  Vera  Cruz, 
waiting  while  Washington  held  the  army  and  navy  bound 
in  port,  Jack,  according  to  rumor  in  the  capitalist  press 
of  the  United  States,  was  leading  a  band  of  insurrectos 
somewhere  in  the  north  of  Mexico !  Rumor,  did  I  say?  The 
large  headlines  read: 

JACK  LONDON  LEADS  ARMY  OF  MEXICO  REBELS. 

That  some  one  was  making  use  of  his  name,  however, 
seems  probable ;  for  later  on  we  heard  of  persons  who  had 
met  "Jack  London"  in  Mexico  and  in  Lower  California. 
And  an  American  firm  dealing  in  artist's  materials,  waited 
for  years  for  this  or  another  spurious  Jack  London  in 
Mexico  to  settle  his  account. 

Whether  Jack  gathered  the  bacilli  in  Tampico,  or 
whether  General  Maas '  blockade  that  prevented  the  ingress 
of  fresh  food  to  the  occupied  town  of  Vera  Cruz,  combined 
with  the  hotel's  filthy  kitchen,  was  responsible,  we  shall 
never  know.  But  on  May  30,  the  day  set  for  him  to  go  up 
in  an  army  aeroplane,  instead  he  went  to  bed  in  our  lately 


NEW  YORK;  MEXICO;  ROAMER  299 

bullet-riddled  room,  with  acute  bacillary  dysentery.  Na- 
kata  and  I  took  charge  of  the  nursing,  under  the  resident 
American  physician,  Dr.  A.  E.  Goodman,  in  consultation 
with  Major  Williams.  The  latter  wanted  him  to  go  into 
army  hospital,  but  Jack  seemed  to  prefer  a  woman  nurse, 
being  myself.  Thereafter,  every  spoonful  of  water  that 
passed  his  lips  or  was  used  in  nursing,  was  first  thoroughly 
boiled  in  our  room  by  means  of  electric  appliances,  "Thanks 
to  American  efficiency, "  he  groaned  from  his  bed;  and  his 
food  we  cooked  by  the  same  process. 

It  was  a  desperate,  cautious  campaign  against  death,  but 
as  usual  the  patient  managed  by  his  uncommon  recupera 
tive  powers  to  make  a  spectacular  recovery.  After  a  few 
days  he  insisted  that  I  take  the  air  with  our  friends,  and 
upon  my  accepting  dinner  invitations  in  the  portales  be 
low.  "And  be  sure  you  don't  stint  yourself  at  the  lace 
shops!"  he  would  call  after,  with  indulgent  eyes.  Or  he 
would  turn  to  greet  a  decayed  Spanish  gentleman  who  tip 
toed  in,  who  must  part  with  certain  ornaments  of  coral  and 
ancient  gold  filigree : 

"Do  you  like  it,  Mate?"  he  would  finger  a  bracelet  or 
rosary.  "If  you  do,  say  the  word.  A  woman  must  have 
some  loot  of  war,  even  if  her  husband  has  to  buy  it!" 

Nine  days  after  he  was  stricken,  and  with  pleurisy  to 
boot,  he  was  able  to  go  aboard  the  cattle  transport  Ossabaw, 
bound  for  Galveston.  "If  anything  breaks  in  Vera  Cruz, 
which  I  don 't  think  likely,  I  can  return, ' '  he  said.  i '  Mean 
time,  me  for  the  Ranch,  where  I  can  have  white-man's  cli 
mate  and  grub!" 

"Do  you  know  what  are  in  the  long  boxes  where  those 
soldiers  are  sitting  to  play  cards?"  Jack  pointed  down  to 
the  main  deck.  And  before  I  could  gasp  a  reply,  he  finished : 

"Those  fellows  were  dead  in  four  days  of  what  I  pulled 
through." 

About  this  time  occurred  the  riots  in  the  hopfields  at 
Wheatland,  California,  resulting  from  shocking  conditions 


300  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

and  treatment,  and  for  once  the  high-handed  methods  of 
certain  detectives  had  roused  the  ire  of  the  public.  Jack's 
opinion  concerning  this  u death  hole"  was  sought — indeed, 
looking  over  his  clipping-books,  I  notice  how  frequently  he 
was  asked  for  his  opinion  upon  widely  variant  subjects.  I 
quote : 

"The  sheriff  fired  a  shot  in  the  air,  and  then,  presto!  it  all 
happened  at  once.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  nobody  knows  what  hap 
pened.  I  am  willing  to  bet  that  if  every  one  of  these  witnesses 
went  before  God  Almighty  and  told,  to  the  best  of  his  recollection, 
no  two  would  agree.  It  was  the  well-known  crowd  psychology  on 
the  job. 

"These  men  were  not  organized.  There  was  only  one  amongst 
the  2300  of  them  who  held  an  I.  W.  W.  card.  They  did  not  need 
organization.  They  had  seen  the  cost  of  living  soar  and  soar,  their 
purchasing  power  grow  less  and  less ;  they  had  all  felt  within  them 
selves,  'Something  must  be  done.'  Above  all,  they  have  had  force 
preached  into  them,  pounded  into  them,  from  the  beginning — by 
whom?  The  employers. 

"The  employers  have  always  ruled  the  working  class  with 
force.  One  incident  happened  that  is  strangely  typical.  One  of 
the  Durst  Brothers  struck  one  of  the  leading  workmen  in  the  face. 
He  said  he  did  it  'facetiously.'  Maybe  he  did;  it  isn't  likely. 
But,  facetious  or  not,  that  blow  symbolized  the  whole  relation  be 
tween  employer  and  employee.  Where  they  do  not  actually  strike 
blows,  it  is  because  they  fear  the  blows  will  be  struck  back. 

"Now,  Sheriff  Voss  and  District  Attorney  Manwell  came  on 
the  scene  not  at  all  in  the  interest  of  equity,  but  in  the  interest  of 
the  employer.  They  were  not  there  to  see  fair  play;  they  were 
there  to  'keep  order/  The  sheriff  expected  his  shot  in  the  air  to 
cow  them. 

"Why  didn't  they  cow?  Simply  because  they  are  becoming 
more  and  more  imbued  with  the  belief  that  force  is  the  only  way. 
I  look  back  over  history  and  see  that  never  has  the  ruling  class 
relinquished  a  single  one  of  its  privileges  except  it  was  forced  to. 

"It  is  always  the  things  we  fight  for,  bleed  for,  that  we  care 
most  for.  This  lesson  of  force  is  soaking  into  the  workers — that's 
all." 


NEW  YORK;  MEXICO;  ROAMER  301 

Another  question  upon  which  Jack's  views  were  solicited 
was  as  follows :  A  grown  man  in  the  State  of  Illinois  took 
advantage  of  a  young  girl,  and  was  sentenced  to  thirty 
years  in  the  penitentiary.  A  child  being  born,  the  young 
mother  started  a  movement  to  free  its  father  so  that  he 
might  marry  her  for  the  sake  of  the  child.  Jack's  answer  to 
the  Newspaper  Enterprise  Association  is  below: 

"The  world  and  civilization  belong  to  the  races  that  practice 
monogamy.  Monogamy  is  set  squarely  against  promiscuity. 
Wherefore  monogamy,  as  the  cornerstone  of  the  state,  demands  a 
legal  father  for  Vallie.  Also  the  father  and  the  mother  of  Vallie  de 
sire  to  make  their  parenthood  legal.  Therefore  the  only  logical 
thing  for  the  state  of  Illinois  to  do  is  to  make  possible  this  legaliza 
tion  of  Vallie 's  birth  and  parentage.  Otherwise  the  State  of  Illin 
ois  stultifies  itself  by  kicking  out  the  cornerstone  of  civilization  on 
which  it  is  found,  namely,  the  family  group  that  can  exist  only 
under  monogamy." 

No  one  could  be  more  shaken  than  Jack,  in  July,  by  the 
beginning  of  war  in  Europe.  And  while  he  went  on  unre 
mittingly  with  writing  and  ranch,  the  war  was  the  under 
current  of  every  thought.  More  staunchly  than  ever  before 
he  reiterated  his  faith  in  England.  "England  is  fighting 
her  first  popular  war,"  he  would  say;  and  he  could  not  for 
give  Germany,  over  and  above  her  sworn  Frightfulness,  for 
having  been  stupid  enough  to  think  that  England  would 
not  fight. 

But  to  any  proposition  bearing  upon  his  presence  in 
France  as  correspondent,  he  practically  turned  a  deaf  ear, 
in  1914  and  thenceforward  until  he  died. 

"Again  I  say,  the  Japanese  settled  the  war  correspond 
ent  forever,  by  proving  him  non-essential.  Look  at  Davis 
and  the  rest,  some  of  the  best  in  the  world, "  he  would  indi 
cate  as  the  conflict  widened.  ' '  Eating  out  their  hearts  over 
there.  Not  for  me.  If  I  went,  I  would  be  unable  to  get 
what  I  went  after.  I  have  learned  my  lesson.  If  I  ever  do 


302  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

go  to  this  war,  it  will  be  to  fight  with  England  and  her 
Allies.  .  .  .  Meantime,  I  have  a  lot  of  mouths  to  feed,  and 
irons  in  the  fire,  and  I  could  not  leave  with  my  affairs  in 
their  present  shape. " 

Yet  I  knew  that  had  there  been  the  ghost  of  an  opening 
for  him  to  see  what  he  wished,  he  would  have  managed  to  go. 

He  and  Collier's  corresponded  upon  the  possibility,  to 
find,  in  the  end,  that  they  agreed  upon  the  matter.  They 
wrote  him: 

"  We  learned  .  .  .  that  of  the  twelve  English  correspon 
dents  chosen  to  join  Sir  John  French's  army  not  one  has  as 
yet  been  allowed  the  privilege,  and  the  prospect  seems  that 
the  thing  has  been  indefinitely  postponed.  .  .  .  The  pre- 
cariousness  of  the  whole  business  of  war  correspondents 
at  the  present  time  seems  to  make  it  rather  futile  to  put 
first-class  men  in  the  field,  BO  to  speak,  and  break  their 
hearts  by  making  it  impossible  for  them  to  get  anywhere  of 
real  importance.  .  .  .  We  sent  you  a  clipping  some  days  ago 
which  shows  that  finally  all  belligerents  have  decided  to  do 
away  with  correspondents.  The  result  is  that  we  can  only 
get  certain  casual  articles  from  roving  writers  of  one  sort 
or  another  with  very  little  or  real  stuff  from  the  front. ' ' 

Exasperated  with  the  way  he  felt  the  Mexican  crisis  had 
been  mishandled  at  Washington,  Jack  grew  more  so  with 
the  failure  of  his  own  country,  as  time  went  on,  to  take  a 
hand  in  the  European  crisis.  The  effect  of  all  this  was  to 
stimulate  his  brain  to  more  thinking,  while  at  the  same  time 
he  increased  his  work  and  plans  for  work  in  every  direc 
tion. 

When  in  June  he  gave  me  "The  Strength  of  the  Strong/' 
the  fly  leaf  reminded  me  of  that  in  a  book  he  had  sent  me  the 
month  before  our  marriage,  in  which  was  written :  "The  red 
gods  call  to  us.  We  fling  ourselves  across  the  world  to 
meet  again  and  not  to  part. ' '  And  here,  nine  years  later, 
I  found: 


NEW  YORK;  MEXICO;  ROAMER  303 

"Back  again  from  Vera  Cruz,  and  all  the  world,  you  back  with 
me  from  the  war  game,  I  am  almost  driven  to  assert  that  our  little 
war  game  adventure  was  as  sweet  and  fine  as  our  first  honeymoon. ' ' 

In  the  Indian  summer  we  rejoined  the  Roamer  at  San 
Eafael  and  spent  months  upon  the  big  bay.  The  Exposition 
was  rising  from  the  water's  edge  and  many  the  late  after 
noon  we  pulled  up  our  fishing-lines  where  we  lay  off  Angel 
Island,  and  sailed  to  where  we  could  watch  that  dream  city 
of  domes  and  minarets  in  the  flood  of  sunset  rose  and  gold. 

On  December  8,  Jack  signed  and  dated  the  manuscript  of 
"The  Little  Lady  of  the  Big  House/'  and  began  working  up 
notes  for  the  Grove  Play,  which  the  Bohemian  Club  had 
asked  him  to  prepare  for  the  1916  High  Jinks. 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII 

ROAMER;  RETURN  TO  HAWAII;  GLEN  ELLEN  FORTIETH  YEAR 

1915 

WANT  to  hear  some  of  your  husband's  verse ?"  he 
queried  with  mock  gravity,  inking  a  period  to  his 
first  morning 's  work  upon  "The  Acorn  Planter. "  "Come 
below,  and  listen  how  it  runs  along !" 

He  had  much  sport  writing  this  thin  little  volume.  But 
let  no  one  mistake  that  he  was  not  in  dead  earnest  with 
regard  to  its  motif.  Far  from  attempting  formal  versifi 
cation,  he  but  fixed  more  noticeably  the  runic  tendency  in 
earlier  work  which  had  dealt  with  the  Younger  World. 
When  it  was  done  and  read  aloud,  he  passed  me  the  last 
slender  sheaf  to  copy,  sighing: 

"I  don't  know  what  to  think  of  it — and  yet,  I  don't 
believe  it  is  so  bad !  Good  or  bad,  however,  it  is  done ;  so 
send  it  along  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Bohemian  Club. 

One  thing  about  it,  though:  I'll  bet  the  composers  in 

the  Club  are  going  to  have  merry  hell  putting  music  to  it. 
They've  done  Indian  stuff  before  now;  but  this  goes  too  far 
back  into  the  raw  beginnings  of  the  race,  I  fear.  .  .  .  Ready 
to  cast  off,  Nakata?"  And  Jack  sprang  to  the  Roamer's 
wheel,  and  in  fine  disdain  of  wind  and  wave  forgot  "The 
Acorn  Planter,"  and  all  its  works. 

It  was  for  the  very  reason  feared  by  Jack  that  the  Grove 
Play  was  finally  written  by  some  one  else.  "The  Acorn 
Planter"  has  never  been  enacted,  but  appeared  in  book- 
form  in  1916.  "And  somehow,  I  like  the  little  thing,"  he 
would  say,  passing  his  hand  over  it. 

304 


EETUBN  TO  HAWAII;  FOETIETH  YEAR     305 

"And  now,"  lie  announced  at  nine  the  morning  after  it 
was  finished, J '  now  for  a  dog-story.  I  just  seem  to  have  to 
write  one  every  so  often." 

This  was  "  Jerry,"  which  was  followed  by  a  companion 
book,  "Michael,"  as  "The  Call  of  the  Wild"  had  preceded 
"White  Fang."  When,  Jack  gone  beyond  consulting,  I 
was  confronted  with  the  dilemma  of  issuing  "Jerry"  simul 
taneously  with  a  book  of  the  same  name  from  another  house, 
I  hit  upon  "Jerry  of  the  Islands,"  with  "Michael  Brother 
of  Jerry"  to  balance  the  sequel.  Jack  had  planned,  after 
bringing  out  both  volumes,  eventually  to  combine  them 
under  the  title  of  "Jerry  and  Michael."  I  remember  how 
he  reveled  in  creating  the  Ancient  Mariner. 

1 1  Michael, ' '  beneath  its  delightful  romance  and  character 
portraiture,  is  frank  propaganda  for  the  stamping  out  of 
stage-training  for  animals.  To  this  end,  Jack  had  for  years 
been  quietly  collecting  data  from  every  available  source. 
No  reader  who  would  understand  his  motive  should  pass  by 
the  Preface  of  "Michael,  Brother  of  Jerry,"  which  states 
his  views.  Out  of  this  book  has  grown  a  rapidly  expand 
ing,  international  organization  known  as  The  Jack  London 
Club.  There  are  no  dues. 

"Jerry"  and  "Michael"  appeared  duly  in  The  Cosmo 
politan  Magazine,  and  the  books  were  published  in  1917 
and  1918  respectively.  "Jerry"  was  partly  written  in 
Hawaii. 

Young  friends  in  Stockton  persuaded  us  to  leave 
the  yacht  at  anchor  and  join  a  week-end  jaunt  to  Truckee, 
for  the  winter  sports.  There  in  the  High  Sierras  we  tobog- 
anned  and  went  on  sleighing  parties.  A  visit  to  the  lake 
where  the  ill-starred  Donner  Party  had  made  its  last  stand 
against  odds,  affected  Jack — that  frontier  tragedy,  with 
others  of  the  brave  old  days,  having  always  stirred  his 
imagination.  The  skiirg,  while  he  watched  it  by  the  hour, 
and  ice-skating,  Jack  would  not  attempt  with  his  '  *  smashed ' ' 
ankles,  which  had  been  cramping  at  night.  "Getting  old, 


306  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

getting  old,"  he  would  grit  through  his  teeth  while  I  manip 
ulated  the  small  feet.  1 1  Do  you  realize  that  your  husband  is 
in  his  fortieth  year?" 

Then  he  met  "Scotty,"  otherwise  Mr.  J.  H.  Scott,  cham 
pion  dog-musher,  with  his  prize  teams  of  Malemutes  and 
Siberian  huskies,  gee-pole  sleds  and  all.  Jack's  pleasure 
knew  no  bounds — because,  forsooth,  beyond  all  personal  joy 
in  renewing  acquaintance  with  the  trappings  of  a  wonder 
ful  phase  in  his  youth,  he  could  now  show  me  the  old  way 
of  the  Northland.  " Scotty"  appreciated  the  situation,  and 
we  must  drive  with  him.  Two  sleds  swung  up  to  the  curb, 
one  driven  by  Mr.  Brady,  and  we  took  the  novel  airing  for 
glistening  miles  to  a  neighboring  mountain  town — Jack 
behind  the  eight  Malemutes,  I  drawn  by  the  dozen  lighter 
dogs,  little  chow-like  things  of  fluff  and  steel,  with  plumy 
curled  tails  and  the  brightest,  merriest  eyes  and  manners 
in  the  world,  ready  to  stampede  the  outfit  any  moment  a 
rabbit  hove  above  the  white  horizon. 

"Gee!  I  wish  it  were  possible  to  film  'The  Call  of  the 
Wild,'  Jack  considered.  "What  good  materials  right  here! 
But  I  don 't  see  how  it  could  be  done — a  dog  hero  would  be 
necessary." 

* '  How  about  your  stage-training  for  animals  ? "  I  hinted. 
But  he  thought  the  "cruelty"  would  be  negligible  in  pre 
paring  a  dog,  whose  part  at  best  could  be  but  subsidiary. 

"Bemember,"  he  worked  it  out,  "a  long  time,  in 
one  place,  with  no  harsh  traveling  conditions,  would  be 
taken  to  get  the  dog  in  shape.  A  few  performances,  at 
most,  would  do  the  trick,  which  is  very  different  from  the 
vaudeville  circuit,  my  dear,  where  the  animal  is  obliged, 
fair  weather  and  foul,  to  go  through  the  same  act,  often  of 
most  unnatural  character,  from  two  to  four  times  a  day, 
year  in  and  year  out." 

Eight  here  is  a  good  place  to  make  clear  Jack  London's 
position  with  regard  to  a  much-mooted  issue,  that  of  vivi 
section.  He  subscribed  to  the  use,  not  the  abuse  of  vivi- 


EETUEN  TO  HAWAII;  FOETIETH  YEAR     307 

section,  approaching  this  subject,  as  all  others,  through  the 
scientific  avenue. 

"No,  I'll  admit,  I'd  run  a  thousand  miles  rather  than 
see  a  pet  dog  of  mine  cut  up.  But  if  it  were  a  choice  between 
having  my  dog  or  any  dog  experimented  upon,  and  my 
child  or  any  child,  I'd  say  the  dog  every  time." 

Thus,  he  had  little  time  to  waste  in  argument  with  men 
and  women  who  made  claim  that  no  benefit  had  been  derived 
from  vivisection,  no  human  life  saved  by  the  conclusions 
therefrom.  He  considered  that  he  knew  better,  what  of 
the  time  he  spent  with  the  books. 

"There  will  always  be  fanatics,  and  there  will  always 
be  abuse,  in  any  field  of  research,"  he  would  declare.  "But 
the  legitimate  practice  of  vivisection  should  not  be  inter 
fered  with.  It  should  be  subject  to  inspection  and  control 
—but  not  by  ignorant  and  prejudiced  sentimentalists,  who 
won't  listen  to  the  good  features  of  a  proposition,  and  who 
exaggerate  the  regretable." 

There  was  something  inimical  working  in  Jack's  blood 
those  days.  No  sooner  were  we  back  on  the  Eanch,  than  the 
sporadic  cramps  were  succeeded  by  an  attack  of  rheumatism 
in  one  foot. 

"And  gaze  out  of  that  window,  at  the  weather,"  he 
grieved,  pointing  from  his  bed  to  the  streaming  landscape. 
"Last  winter  there  wasn't  enough  rain.  This  year  we're 
swamped!  God  doesn't  love  the  farmer!  But  the  drain- 
tile  is  carrying  off  a  lot  of  the  overflow — things  are  work 
ing,  things  are  working!"  he  cheered  up. 

Severe  pyorrhea  of  long  standing  contributed  its  quota 
of  poison;  and,  in  his  acid  condition,  his  yachting  fare  of 
twelve-minute-roasted  canvasback  and  mallard,  and  red- 
meated  raw  fish,  was  hazardous  menu.  He  experimented 
with  emetine,  and  had  the  village  doctor  make  tri-weekly 
calls  at  the  Eanch  to  give  him  intramuscular  hypodermic 
injections.  Jack's  mouth  altered  considerably  in  latter 
years,  from  loss  of  all  upper  teeth  and  wearing  a  plate 


308  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

The  upper  lip,  once  full  and  narrowing  to  the  deep  corners, 
grew  thinner  and  more  straight  of  line.  It  was  no  less 
beautiful — merely  different  from  the  more  youthful  fea 
ture.  Jack's  face,  at  whatever  age,  breaking  into  smile 
of  lips  and  eyes,  was  one  that,  once  seen,  was  never  for 
gotten.  It  is  undying.  It  will  persist  as  long  as  the  life  of 
any  one  who  beheld  it. 

Before  sailing  for  Honolulu  on  February  24,  we  made 
several  trips  to  that  loveliest  of  evanescent  cities,  the  Pan- 
Pacific  Exposition.  Jack  cared  little,  as  a  rule,  for  that 
sort  of  spectacle  and  amusement.  But  the  sunset  metropolis 
enfolded  him  in  its  golden  embrace,  charmed  him  into  hours 
of  unwonted  idleness,  through  afternoon  and  blue  twi 
light,  listening  to  the  fountains  and  watching  the  Tower  of 
Jewels  blossom  against  the  starlit  skies.  One  day  I  par 
ticularly  recall,  when  we  had  arrived  early  and  stepped 
into  the  human,  holiday  atmosphere  that  pervaded  the  vast 
inclosure. 

1  i  I  never  drove  a  car  in  my  life, ' '  Jack  threatened.  *  *  It 's 
time  I  began.  Woman,  climb  in!"  What  I  was  so  sum 
marily  invited  to  climb  into  was  one  of  the  handy  electric- 
driven  wheel-chairs  that  rest  many  tired  limbs.  How  we 
laughed;  and  how  the  morning  strollers  laughed  with  the 
enthusiastic,  noisy  boy  with  the  cap  and  curls,  who  coaxed 
the  feeble  mechanism  into  doing  his  will,  and  when  it  would 
not  respond,  talked  to  it  eloquently  before  dismounting 
and  lifting  it  around.  It  was  Jack  London,  any  of  you 
who  joined  in  gayety  with  the  exuberant  boy  that  crisp 
California  morning.  Once,  stalled  momentarily  in  a  ge 
ranium  nursery  behind  the  giant  arbor  that  was  the 
Horticultural  Building,  he  stopped  to  admire  the  floral 
flames.  He  did  not  live  to  learn  that  one  of  them,  a  large 
crimson  single  variety,  had  been  named  for  himself. 

Going  to  Hawaii  had  been  farthest  from  our  thoughts 
that  winter  of  1915,  and  our  decision  was  a  result  of  the 
merest  turn  of  events.  Jack,  beneath  almost  more  than  he 


RETURN  TO  HAWAII;  FORTIETH  YEAR     309 

could  stagger,  even  with  his  large  earnings,  intended  to 
stay  close  at  home  and  work  out  his  financial  salvation 
under  double  pressure  of  work.  The  Cosmopolitan  had 
offered  release  from  his  fiction  contract  long  enough  for 
him  to  accompany  the  Atlantic  Fleet,  carrying  the  Presi 
dent,  on  its  jaunt  through  the  Panama  Canal  to  the  Exposi 
tion.  Jack's  personal  desire,  or  lack  of  desire  to  leave 
home,  is  expressed  in  his  telegraphic  reply : 

"Glen  Ellen,  December  18,  1914. 

"Don't  want  to  go  anywhere.  Don't  want  to  do  anything  ex 
cept  stay  in  California  and  write  two  dandy  novels,  the  first  of 
which  I  am  now  framing  up.  However,  since  I  like  to  be  as  good 
to  my  friends  as  I  like  my  friends  to  be  good  to  me,  I  am  willing  to 
fall  for  the  Panama  adventure  if  it  does  not  compel  me  to  lose 
too  much  financially. 

* '  European  war  has  hit  me  hard  financially,  wherefore  in  view 
of  fact  that  Panama  trip  is  short  enough  not  to  prevent  my  deliver 
ing  next  year's  serials  on  time,  the  primary  stipulation  is  that 
regular  check  comes  to  Ranch  every  month,  including  the  month 
in  which  I  do  Panama.  Wire  me  full  business  details,  dates,  and 
amount  of  stuff  I  am  expected  to  write.  Should  like  several  days 
in  New  York  before  sailing." 

It  was  not  for  me  to  sail  on  the  battleship,  and  while  I 
accepted  my  feminine  fate,  I  declined  again  to  remain 
in  California  during  an  absence  of  Jack.  "I  shall  go  to 
Honolulu  and  join  Beth,"  referring  to  my  cousin,  Beth 
Wiley,  who  was  wintering  here.  "I  can  be  in  San  Fran 
cisco  for  your  return. " 

Jack,  though  outwardly  falling  in  with  my  plan,  I  think 
was  rather  taken  aback  at  the  idea  of  his  small  woman 
going  her  own  way,  alone.  It  was  amusing  to  note  his 
restlessness.  Not  once  but  many  times  he  would  boil  over. 

"I  don't  want  to  go  on  that  damned  Panama  trip — I 
want  to  go  to  Hawaii  with  you,  and  work  on  *  Jerry7  and 
1  Michael!'  " 


310      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

Or:  " Somehow,  I  can't  be  content  not  to  see  the  Islands 
again,  with  you." 

The  exigencies  of  the  European  conflict  having  made  it 
necessary  to  call  off  the  Fleet's  Exposition  voyage,  Jack's 
voice  rang  with  the  good  news : 

"Look  what  I've  got!  And  now,  Mate  Woman,  I  can 
go  to  Hawaii  with  you!" 

But  when,  standing  on  the  deck  of  the  Matsonia,  we 
waved  farewell  to  our  friends,  he  confessed : 

"Do  you  know  the  true  reason  I  am  aboard  this  ship 
to-day?  Because  I  could  not  bear  to  disappoint  you — and 
incidentally  myself.  I  ought  not  to  go  away,  with  all  those 
important  things  needing  my  attention.  But  I  just  couldn't 
risk  the  sight  of  your  face  when  I  should  tell  you  that  you'd 
have  to  go  alone  after  all!" 

"But  I  wouldn't,"  said  I,  with  a  great  relief  that  our 
feet  were  on  the  outward-bound  planking.  "I  should  have 
staid  home,  of  course,  where  I  belonged — and  beside,"  I  put 
in  slyly,  "if  you  had  let  business  keep  you  home,  it  would  be 
the  first  time!  You've  always  been  able  to  manage  things 
from  a  distance,  and  the  mails  and  cable  facilities  are  still 
working. ' ' 

"You're  right,"  he  acknowledged. 

This  and  our  next  visit,  as  before  written,  are  detailed 
in  my  book  "Our  Hawaii."  In  the  1921  edition,  I  have 
included  three  articles  written  by  Jack  in  1916,  entitled  "My 
Hawaiian  Aloha,"  which  one  of  the  Territory's  leading  men 
pronounced  "worth  millions  to  the  Islands." 

We  took  our  own  servants  and  set  up  housekeeping,  in 
the  first  instance  on  Beach  Walk,  whence  we  came  and  went 
on  inter-island  travels  in  the  group.  Our  daily  life  in  the 
pretty  cottage  included  the  same  working  habits  as  at 
home ;  and  afternoons  were  spent  on  the  beach.  Each  day, 
after  luncheon,  saw  Jack,  often  robed  in  a  blue  kimono  of 
bold  design,  carrying  a  long  bag  of  similar  fabric  contain 
ing  reading  matter  and  cigarettes,  with  a  bath-towel  wound 


EETUEN  TO  HAWAII;  FORTIETH  YEAR     311 

turban-wise  around  his  head,  soft-footing  Kalia  Road 
bound  for  the  Outrigger  Club.  They  were  happy  hours, 
lying  on  the  shady  sand  among  the  barbaric  black-and- 
yellow  canoes,  reading  aloud,  napping,  and  chatting  with 
our  friends.  Later  in  the  day  we  swam  through  and  beyond 
the  breakers  and  spent  some  of  the  most  wonderful  moments 
of  our  united  lives  floating  in  the  deeper  water  where,  in 
the  swaying,  caressing  element,  undisturbed  betwixt  sky 
and  earth,  all  things  lost  their  complicated  aspect,  and  we 
talked  simply  and  solemnly  of  the  issues  that  count  most  in 
human  relationship. 

When  "The  Scarlet  Plague,"  written  just  before  the 
baby  was  born,  had  been  received,  in  it  he  wrote : 

"My  Mate- Woman: 

"And  here,  in  blessed  Hawaii,  eight  years  after  our  voyage 
here  in  our  own  speck  boat,  we  find  ourselves,  not  merely  again, 
but  more  bound  to  each  other  than  then  or  than  ever. ' ' 

In  March  he  wrote  a  Preface  for  "The  Cry  for  Justice, " 
by  Upton  Sinclair. 

The  following  letter,  written  on  June  3,  is  interesting: 

"Dear  Cloudesley: 

"In  reply  to  yours  of  May  15.  First  of  all,  whatever  you  do, 
read  Conrad's  latest — VICTORY.  Read  it,  if  you  have  to  pawn 
your  watch  to  buy  it.  Conrad  has  exceeded  himself.  He  must  have 
deliberately  set  himself  the  challenge,  and  it  is  victory  for  him, 
because  he  has  skinned  "Ebb  Tide." 

"He  has  made  a  woman  out  of  nothing — out  of  sweepings  of 
life,  and  he  has  made  her  woman  glorious.  He  has  painted  love 
with  all  love's  illusion — himself,  Conrad,  devoid  of  illusion. 

4 '  Lena  goes  without  saying.  She  is  Woman.  But  it  is 
possible,  absolutely  possible,  for  the  several  such  men  as  Mr.  Jones, 
Ricardo,  Pedro,  Heyst,  Schomberg,  Morrison,  Davidson,  and  Wang 
and  his  Alfuro  woman,  to  exist.  I  know  them  all.  I  have  met 
them  all.  I  swear  it. 


312  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

"As  regards  the  love  of  this  book,  the  sex  of  this  book — all  the 
love  and  the  sex  of  it  is  correct,  cursedly  correct,  splendidly, 
magnificently  correct,  with  every  curse  of  it  and  every  splendid 
magnificence  of  it  duly  placed,  shaded  and  balanced.  Yes,  and 
the  very  love  of  Ricardo  is  tremendous  and  correct. 

"In  brief,  I  am  glad  that  I  am  alive,  if,  for  no  other  reason, 
because  of  the  joy  of  reading  this  book. 

"Jack  London." 

The  next  day,  still  filled  with  his  emotion,  he  could  not 
restrain  himself  from  passing  it  on  to  the  author  of 
"Victory": 

"Honolulu,  T.  H.,  June  4,  1915. 
'  *  Dear  Joseph  Conrad : 

' '  The  mynah  birds  are  waking  the  hot  dawn  about  me.  The  surf 
is  thundering  in  my  ears  where  it  falls  on  the  white  sand  of  the 
beach,  here  at  Waikiki,  where  the  green  grass  at  the  roots  of  the 
cocoanut  palms  insists  to  the  lip  of  the  wave-wash.  This  night  has 
been  yours — and  mine. 

"I  had  just  begun  to  write  when  I  read  your  first  early  work. 
I  have  merely  madly  appreciated  you  and  communicated  my  appre 
ciation  to  my  friends  through  all  these  years.  I  never  wrote  you. 
I  never  dreamed  to  write  you.  But  *  Victory'  has  swept  me  off  my 
feet,  and  I  am  inclosing  herewith  a  carbon  copy  of  a  letter  written 
to  a  friend  at  the  end  of  this  lost  night's  sleep.  [The  letter  to 
Cloudesley.] 

"Perhaps  you  will  appreciate  this  lost  night's  sleep  when  I  tell 
you  that  it  was  immediately  preceded  by  a  day's  sail  in  a  Japanese 
sampan  of  sixty  miles  from  the  Leper  Settlement  of  Molokai 
(where  Mrs.  London  and  I  had  been  revisiting  old  friends)  to 
Honolulu. 

"On  your  head  be  it. 

"Aloha  (which  is  a  sweet  word  of  greeting,  the  Hawaiian 
greeting,  meaning  'My  love  be  with  you.") 

"Jack  London." 

Never,  before  or  since,  have  I  taken  such  hazards  with 
the  water  as  during  those  months  at  Waikiki,  under  Jack's 


RETURN  TO  HAWAII;  FORTIETH  YEAR    313 

tutelage.  Always  relying  upon  that  sixth  sense  of  his  in 
matters  of  life  and  death,  I  followed  his  lead  wherever  he 
thought  by  direction  I  could  go,  and  accomplished  what  I 
would  not  have  deemed  possible  for  myself.  But  he  never 
led  me  where  he  feared  I  could  not  safely  swim.  And  when 
once  or  twice  we  had  surmounted  conditions  that  kept 
shorebound  the  canoes  and  even  surfriders,  and  returned 
unexhausted,  his  joy  and  pride  in  his  "one  small  woman " 
were  unlimited. 

"You're  so  little,  so  frail,  white  woman  of  my  own 
kind,"  he  would  marvel,  his  great  eyes  looking  into  me 
as  if  to  discern  the  fiber  of  which  I  was  made.  'Look  at  that 
arm,  with  its  delicate  bones — I  could  snap  it  like  a  clay  pipe- 
stem  .  .  .  and  yet,  those  arms  never  faltered  in  that  succes 
sion  of  smoking  combers  to-day  .  .  ."  He  tapped  his  fore 
head:  "That's  where  it  resides — that's  what  makes  the 
trivial  flesh  and  bone  able  to  do  what  it  does!" 

Deep  thinker  though  he  was,  and  worshipful  of  the  brain- 
stuff  of  others,  he  ever  found  shining  things  of  the  spirit  in 
courageous  physical  endeavor.  I  think,  in  a  dozen  close 
years  with  him,  year  in  and  year  out,  "in  sickness  and  in 
health,"  till  death  did  us  part,  that  never  have  I  seen  him 
more  elated,  more  uplifted  with  delight  over  feat  of  one 
dear  to  him,  than  upon  one  April  day  at  Waikiki. 

An  out-and-out  Kona  gale  had  piled  up  a  big,  quick- 
following  surf,  threshing  milk-white  and  ominous  under  a 
leaden,  low-hanging  sky.  At  the  Outrigger  beach  no  soul 
was  visible ;  but  a  group  of  young  sea-gods  belonging  to  the 
Club  sat  with  bare  feet  outstretched  on  the  railing  of  the 
lanai  above  the  canoes.  Joining  them,  Jack  inquired  if  they 
were  "going  out."  "Nothing  doing,"  one  laughed.  And 
another,  "This  is  no  day  for  surf -boards — and  a  canoe 
couldn't  live  in  that  mess!"  "But  we  are  going  to  swim 
out,"  Jack  said.  "You'd  better  not,  Mr.  London,"  the 
boys  frowned  respectfully.  "You  couldn't  take  a  woman 


314  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

into  that  water. "  "You  watch  me,"  Jack  returned.  "I 
could,  and  shall." 

We  went.  Now,  understand :  it  was  not  to  be  spectacu 
lar  that  Jack  led  me  into  the  sea  that  day.  This  was  not 
bravado.  With  the  several  weeks'  training  he  had  given 
me  in  sizable  breakers,  he  expected  as  a  matter  of  course 
to  see  me  put  that  training  to  account.  And  I  felt  as  one 
with  him.  The  thing  was,  first,  to  get  beyond  the  diving- 
stage,  for  a  freshet  had  brought  down  the  little  river  a 
tangle  of  thorned  algaroba  and  other  prickly  vegetation, 
which,  with  a  wild  wrack  of  seaweed,  made  the  shallow 
almost  impassable. 

Very  slowly  we  forged  outward,  and  at  length  were  in 
position  where  the  marching  seas  were  forming  and  over- 
toppling.  Eather  stupendous  they  loomed,  I  will  confess; 
but,  remembering  other  and  smaller  ones  and  obeying  scru 
pulously  Jack's  quiet  "Don't  get  straight  up  and  down 
— straighten  out — keep  flat,  keep  flat!"  I  managed  not 
badly  to  breast  and  pass  through  a  dozen  or  more  smoking 
combers  that  followed  fast  and  faster. 

When  I  finally  ventured,  "I  think  I  have  had 
enough,"  immediately  Jack  slanted  our  course  channel- 
ward  where  the  tide  flows  out  toward  the  reef  egress.  But 
after  half  an  hour  we  found  we  were,  despite  all  effort, 
drifting  willy  nilly  out  to  sea.  By  now,  the  young  sea-gods 
had  followed  with  their  boards,  fearing  we  might  come  to 
grief;  and  upon  their  advice  we  rejoined  the  breaking  water, 
and  "came  in  strong"  with  our  best  strokes  to  the  Beach. 

Which  I  tell,  further  to  point  his  passion  for  physical 
courage  and  prowess  that  after  all  are  but  mental.  "I'd 
like  you  to  write  books,  if  you  wanted  to,"  was  his  final 
word;  "but  I'd  rather  see  woman  of  mine  win  through 
those  great  seas  out  there  than  write  great  books!" 

Jack's  health  was  fairly  good  that  summer,  though  he 
seemed  to  be  on  tension,  and  prone  to  argue  overlong  and 
over-intensely.  Indeed,  as  time  went  on,  he  battled  with 


EETUEN  TO  HAWAII;  FOETIETH  YEAE     315 

this  and  that  opponent,  or  provoked  skirmishes,  with  an 
increasing  fervor  and  violence  that  ill-betokened  a  peace 
ful  old  age.  ' '  Oh,  well,  I  Jd  rather  wear  out  than  rust  out ! ' ' 
was  his  verdict  on  the  matter. 

And  once  Jack  told  me  a  thing  that  will  abide  like  a 
dove  of  peace  until  I  die,  as  one  of  my  sweetest  touches  with 
this  sweetest  of  men : 

"I  never  said  this  to  you,"  he  began;  "but  many  years 
ago,  before  I  knew  you  existed,  I  lay  one  afternoon  on  a 
California  beach — at  Santa  Cruz — in  one  of  my  great  dis 
gusts  .  .  .  you  know — when  I  have  dared  look  Truth  in 
the  face  and  become  blackly  pessimistic  about  the  world 
and  the  men  and  women  in  it  who  cannot  learn,  who  cannot 
use  their  puny  minds.  It  was  a  warm,  still  day ;  and  while 
I  lay,  with  my  face  on  my  arms,  over  and  above  the  steady 
breathing  of  the  ocean  and  splashing  of  a  small  surf,  there 
came  to  me,  from  very  far  off,  almost  like  skylarks  in  the 
blue,  the  voices  of  a  man  and  a  woman. 

"I  couldn't  for  the  life  of  me  figure  where  the  voices 
came  from.  I  raised  my  head,  but  no  one  was  in  sight  on 
the  beach ;  and  at  last,  the  nearing  conversation  guided  me 
seaward  where  I  could  just  barely  make  out  the  heads  of 
two  persons  very  leisurely  coming  in,  talking  cozily  out 
there  in  deep  water,  as  unconcerned  and  comfortable  as  if 
sitting  in  the  sand. 

"  Something  inside  me  suddenly  yearned  toward  them 
— they  were  so  blest,  those  two  together.  And  I  wondered, 
lying  there  sadly  enough,  if  there  was  a  woman  in  the  world 
for  me  who  so  loved  the  water — the  little  woman  who  would 
be  the  right  woman  who  would  speak  my  own  language — 
with  whom  I  could  go  out  to  sea,,  without  boat  or  life- 
preserver  ;  hours  in  the  water  holding  long  comradely  talks 
on  everything  under  the  sun,  with  no  more  awareness  of  the 

means  of  locomotion  than  if  walking. 1  could  have  told 

you  this  eight  years  ago,"  he  mused,  "that  wonderful  morn 
ing  we  swam  together  across  Urufaru  Bay  in  Moorea, 


316  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

while  the  Tahitians  worried  about  the  sharks.  ...  I 
thought  of  it  at  the  time.  But  we  were  not  alone.  The  stage 
was  not  set  for  you  and  me." 

I  could  see  that  the  shame  of  civilization,  the  Great 
War,  worked  havoc  in  him.  That  any  white  nation,  hunt 
ing  for  a  place  in  the  sun,  should  have  made  such  a  thing 
possible,  was  never  out  of  his  consciousness ;  and  he  raved 
in  his  choicest  vocabulary  concerning  Germania.  Still,  he 
did  not  think  the  war  would  last  long.  We  were  on  Hawaii, 
the  "Big  Island,"  with  the  1915  Congressional  junketing 
party  from  Washington,  on  which  Jack  had  been  made  one 
of  the  entertainment  committee,  when  the  stunning  intelli 
gence  came  of  the  sinking  of  the  Lusitania.  Jack,  for  once, 
was  shocked  into  something  akin  to  silence.  To  his  mind, 
the  best  characterization  of  that  crime  was  the  one  made 
by  I  have  forgotten  whom:  "  When  Germany,  with  paean  of 
joy,  committed  suicide !" 

To  certain  harsh  comments  upon  a  young  English  friend 
who,  answering  Great  Britain 's  call,  left  his  mother  and  his 
children  in  Honolulu,  Jack  pleaded  with  blazing  eyes : 

"You  do  not  seem  to  understand:  he  had  to  go.  There 
was  no  other  way  out,  for  him,  than  the  one  he  chose ;  he 
could  not  have  done  other  than  he  did  ...  as  well  criticize 
the  flame  that  burns,  as  criticize  this  royal  thing  of  the 
spirit  within  him  that  drew  him  from  success,  and  love  of 
children,  and  fat  security,  half-way  across  the  world  to  fling 
himself  into  the  maelstrom  of  battle,  pain  and  death — all 
for  an  Idea. ' ' 

In  the  latter  part  of  July,  we  bade  good  bye  to  Hono 
lulu.  Jack  said:  "We  must  go  back  soon.  I  feel  as  if 
our  visit  had  been  interrupted. "  For  he  had  made  many 
friends,  conquered  a  few  outstanding  prejudices,  and  felt 
much  at  home  in  this  neighboring  "fleet  of  Islands"  above 
the  Line. 

We  landed  into  the  annoyance  of  trouble  with  the 
grapejuice  company,  but  it  seemed  as  if  difficulties  of  this 


EETUEN  TO  HAWAII;  FORTIETH  YEAR    317 

sort  were  all  in  the  day's  work.  "What  am  I  to  think?  I 
go  into  the  cleanest  sort  of  business,  to  make  the  best  non 
alcoholic  drink  known,  and  I  get  it  in  the  neck,  pronto — just 
like  that! " 

1 '  But  the  lake 's  full  of  water  for  my  alfalfa, ' '  he  checked 
himself,  "and  that  means  more  life,  more  abundance  of 
butter-fat  from  your  little  Jerseys,  bigger  Shire  colts, 
heavier  beef  cattle,  and  the  rest ! ' ' 

To  our  mutual  rejoicing,  the  water  was  warm  enough 
for  swimming,  and  Jack  asked  his  sister  to  shift  a  gang 
from  some  other  section  of  the  ranch,  "run  up"  a  log  bath 
house  of  six  rooms  and  lead  the  necessary  piping  for  two 
showers.  Inside  of  three  days  this  convenience  was  a 
reality,  as  well  as  an  appropriate  accent  in  the  scenery  of 
the  meadow.  A  rustic  table  and  seats,  set  within  a  circle  of 
redwoods,  two  canvas  boats  forgotten  out  of  the  Snarls' s 
dunnage,  together  with  a  diving  float,  perfected  our  equip 
ment  for  al  fresco  entertaining. 

Jack  stocked  the  lakelet  with  catfish  brought  from  the 
San  Joaquin  river,  and  these  proved  a  great  advantage, 
both  for  sport  and  table. 

A  trap-shooting  outfit  was  purchased,  but  he  never  got 
around  to  having  it  installed.  "I  can't  find  a  place  that 
seems  exactly  right,"  he  complained;  "nor  a  good  spot  for 
a  tennis  court.  As  for  golf  links — "  he  put  it  up  to  Joe 
Mather, l  '  if  you  '11  make  suggestions  where  they  can  be  laid 
out,  I'll  go  ahead  and  have  the  work  done." 

There  had  been  correspondence  with  Mr.  Edgar  Sisson, 
then  editor  of  The  Cosmopolitan,  as  to  writing  a  "movie" 
novel  based  upon  a  scenario  by  Charles  Goddard,  author  of 
"The  Perils  of  Pauline"  and  other  "thrillers"  of  the 
screen.  Chapters  of  the  novel  were  to  appear  in  the  string 
of  Hearst  newspapers,  and  simultaneously  illustrated  in 
the  cinema  theatres.  Jack  was  not  enthusiastic  at  first, 
but  saw  a  possible  way  to  recoup  his  pocketbook  from  his 


318  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

tremendous  outlay  on  the  ranch.  His  suggestion  being 
agreed  upon  for  a  lump  sum  running  into  five  large  figures 
with  temporary  release  from  his  regular  measure  of  fiction, 
he  launched  into  it  with  glee: 

" Think — it'll  be  sheer  recreation,  though  I  double  my 
usual  daily  portion,  at  double  my  usual  rate !  And  I  don 't 
have  to  do  a  thing  but  reel  off  the  stuff,  upon  Goddard 's 
scenario  notes.  I  don't  have  to  worry  about  plot,  or 
sequence  of  events,  or  contribute  a  single  idea  if  I  don't 
want  to ! " 

He  never  ceased  to  maintain  that  he  hated  to  write — had 
to  drive  himself  to  it.  It  made  him  flare  when  this  was  ques 
tioned.  In  reply  to  an  unknown  admirer,  he  wrote:  ",  .  . 
Let  me  tell  you  that  I  envy  you.  You  delight  to  write. 
You  delight  in  your  writing.  You  are  enamored  of  writing, 
while  I,  with  the  publication  of  my  first  book,  lost  all  joy 
in  writing.  I  go  each  day  to  my  daily  task  as  a  slave  would 
go  to  his  task.  I  detest  writing.  On  the  other  hand  it  is 
the  best  way  I  have  ever  found  to  make  a  very  good 
living.  So  I  continue  to  write.  But  his  best  work  was  con 
ceived  in  passion  for  its  own  sake,  and  I  think  one  feels 
his  urge  of  self-expression,  while  many  were  his  enthu 
siasms  over  what  he  was  doing.  One  short  piece  of  work 
gave  him  a  great  deal  of  pleasure — a  Preface  for  a  new 
edition  of  Dana's  "Two  Years  Before  the  Mast."  Be 
cause  of  absence  from  California,  his  manuscript  did  not 
reach  Macmillans  in  season,  pnd  it  was  a  keen  disappoint 
ment  to  Jack  that  the  book  was  published  without  his  appre 
ciation.  So  the  most  he  could  do  was  to  include  it  in  a  book- 
collection,  and  it  appears,  under  the  title  of  "A  Classic  of 
the  Sea,"  in  "The  Human  Drift." 

Mr.  Sisson  and  Mr.  Goddard  paid  us  a  visit  to  discuss 
ways  and  means,  because  Jack  avowed  his  determination  of 
taking  this  work  to  Hawaii,  where  Mr.  Goddard  would  have 
to  send  his  installments  of  scenario  for  the  novelist's  guid 
ance.  When  in  the  spring  of  1916,  at  Waikiki,  he  completed 


RETURN  TO  HAWAII;  FORTIETH  YEAR     319 

this  manuscript  of  what  has  been  called  "frenzied  fiction" 
he  wrote  a  Foreword  explaining  at  length  how  he  had  come 
to  lend  himself  to  such  a  bizarre  undertaking.  "In  truth," 
he  says,  "this  yarn  is  a  celebration.  By  its  completion  I 
celebrate  my  fortieth  birthday,  my  fiftieth  book,  my  six 
teenth  year  in  the  writing  game,  and  a  new  departure.  I 
have  certainly  never  done  anything  like  it  before;  I  am 
pretty  certain  never  to  do  anything  like  it  again. ' '  And  he 
then  goes  deeper  into  his  subject. 

"Hearts  of  Three,"  they  named  it;  and,  as  a  sympa 
thetic  critic  has  suggested,  it  should  be  viewed  as  something 
of  a  joke — the  most  adventurous,  high-spirited,  rollicking, 
ridiculous,  impossible  stuff  in  the  world,  an  outrageous 
thing  of  delightful  absurdity.  In  this  light  Jack  regarded 
it,  and  had  the  time  of  his  life  in  its  fabrication.  He  re 
ceived  his  money,  but  died  before  the  story  was  published 
in  the  newspapers;  and  for  some  reason  it  has  not,  up  to 
1921,  been  presented  upon  the  screen. 

Our  loss  of  Nakata,  to  marriage  and  career,  at  the  end 
of  1915,  constituted  more  than  a  domestic  flurry.  He  had 
nearly  every  prerequisite  of  the  close  and  confidential  ser 
vitor,  and  it  is  hard  to  decide  which  suffered  more  from  his 
absence,  Jack  or  myself.  All  in  all,  I  think  it  was  Jack. 
Next,  our  guests  missed  his  cheery  and  charming  service, 
for  "Where  is  Nakata?"  ordinarily  followed  greetings  from 
our  friends. 


CHAPTER  XXXIX 

THE  WAR;  HAW  AH 

1916 

AND  now  I  come  to  the  last  and  most  difficult  movement 
in  my  undertaking.  The  mere  narrative  is  nothing 
— that  in  March,  with  our  Japanese,  we  sailed  on  the  Great 
Northern  for  Honolulu,  rented  a  spreading  old  bungalow  at 
2201  Kalia  Eoad,  Waikiki,  and  lived  the  gay  life  of  the  sub- 
tropic  city,  breaking  the  round  with  wonderful  inter-island 
explorations,  and  returning  to  California  after  seven 
months. 

What  is  so  difficult  is  the  developing  of  this  last  earthly 
phase  of  Jack  London,  so  that  all  who  run  may  read  and 
not  wonder  overmuch  why,  through  sheer  neglect,  he  cut 
himself  off,  or  caused  himself  to  be  cut  off  from  the  larger 
fulfilment  of  himself.  For  I  truly  believe  that  his  best  work 
was  yet  to  come.  That  he  believed  it,  I  am  equally  con 
vinced.  "Just  wait,  wait  until  I've  got  everything  going 
ahead  smoothly,  and  don't  have  to  consider  the  where 
withal  any  more,  and  then  I  am  going  to  write  some  real 
books !" 

Jack's  life  is  the  story  of  a  princely  ego  that  struggled 
for  full  expression,  and  realized  it  only  in  a  small  degree. 
There  were  so  few  to  heed  his  deeper  self-manifestations. 
As  a  mere  lad,  he  was  conscious  of  that  superiority  and  of 
its  environmental  discrepancy,  and  all  the  while  fought  for 
the  congenial  environment.  As  he  grew  in  mental  stature, 
he  recognized  himself  as  part  of  the  whole  ego-substance, 
and  proceeded  to  fight  for  the  proper  environment  for  egos 

320 


THE  WAR;  HAWAII  321 

other  than  his  own.     Hence,  Jack  the  Individualist,  and 
Jack  the  Socialist. 

The  result  of  his  individual  struggle  for  expression, 
when  young,  was  Success,  Recognition.  Yet,  as  I  have 
already  written,  such  was  the  universal  quality  of  his  mind 
that  he  would  have  reached  success,  as  the  world  regards 
it,  by  way  of  any  medium  of  expression  he  had  selected 
under  ceaseless  urge  of  that  princely  ego.  Perhaps,  as  the 
years  lapsed,  if  the  world  had  demanded  more,  he  might 
have  been  forced  into  an  expression  somewhere  nearly  ade 
quate  to  his  inner  demand.  But  the  world  acclaimed  what 
he  did  do,  and  the  money  that  same  world  paid  enabled  him 
to  search  for  happiness — a  goal  in  itself.  Yet  happiness, 
as  he  saw  it,  was  endeavor,  always  endeavor,  the  accumula 
tion  of  knowledge,  and  to  no  small  end.  He  created  an 
environment  which  bade  fair  to  balance  in  extent  his  royal 
requirement — the  wide-reaching  acres  with  their  herds  of 
the  best,  the  lavish  Ihospitality,  the  gre/at  house.  (Yet 
throughout  he  preserved  the  collective  ideal,  gave  to  others 
the  unselfish  help  of  his  brain  and  time  and  money,  impelled 
by  an  incorruptible  ideal  of  making  the  world  a  better  place 
for  his  having  lived  in  it — of  "causing  two  blades  of  grass 
to  grow  where  one  grew  before." 

But  with  all  this  in  his  grasp,  the  instinct  to  search  still 
drove  him  on.  He  was  doomed  to  remain  unsatisfied,  and 
unsatisfied  he  remained.  The  ultimate  aim  could  not  be 
fame,  nor  money,  nor  anything  the  world  had  in  its  gift.  I 
had  almost  said  that  Love  itself  left  him  empty ;  but  insofar 
as  he  loved  Love,  and  could  not  live  without  Love  and  what 
understanding  and  ease  of  spirit  Love  could  vouchsafe  in 
his  unguarded  moments  of  despair,  Love,  I  say,  given  and 
returned,  kept  him  alive  for  many  a  year.  This  I  know. 

He  had  tried  during  his  life  all  the  ways  known  to  man 
for  getting  away  from  an  insatiable  ego.  And  all  he  had 
really  succeeded  in  was  to  obscure  the  demands  that  he  had 
by  his  white  logic  interpreted,  and  had  striven  so  hard  to 


322  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

placate.  It  may  be  he  sensed  this  long  before  he  came 
face  to  face  with  and  acknowledged  it;  and  this  probably 
led  him  more  or  less  consciously  to  greater  emphasis  upon 
all  the  things  with  which  he  drugged  his  perception  of 
futility — his  work,  his  amusements,  and  the  dream  of  scien 
tific  husbandry  into  which  his  unquenchable  pioneering 
spirit  had  led  him.  And  when,  once  in  a  while,  he  brought 
up  and  staggered  before  a  flash  of  insight  to  the  way  he 
was  bound,  he  called  upon  all  the  artifices  of  a  superb 
intellect  to  prove  he  was  right  in  defying  the  vision.  It 
was  a  regal  battle,  and  he  lost — at  least,  so  far  as  concerns 
the  perceptions  of  most  of  us  who  are  left.  No  man  with 
his  capacity  could  ever  really  bury  the  melancholy  heritage 
that  is  coincident  with  the  brain  that  seeks  and  scans  too 
closely  the  fearful  face  of  Truth.  '  *  My  mistake  in  opening 
the  books, "  he  would  repeat.  "  Sometimes  I  wish  I  had 
never  opened  the  books. "  Still,  except  as  he  was  warped 
by  sickness,  at  any  time  he  was  glad  to  quote,  "  'E  liked 
it  all."  The  game  was  worth  the  candle. 

The  conflict  shows  in  the  caliber  of  literature  that  first 
earned  him  renown,  and  the  caliber  of  that  which  served 
his  chosen  end,  preaching  the  things  which  filled  his  brain 
and  hands  with  work  that  waided  off  the  final  capitulation 
he  made  to  his  fate.  The  first  is  distinguished  by  the  im 
personal  note ;  the  second  marked  equally  by  the  personal. 
Had  the  human  clay  of  him  been  equal  to  his  mental 
capacity  and  urge,  he  might  in  time  have  stood  out  grand 
and  free  and  his  gift  to  the  ages  been  of  unequaled  value. 
As  note : 

For  months  Jack  had  been  reading,  in  his  intensive 
method,  in  conjunction  with  the  works  of  all  the  best  alien 
ists,  upon  the  subject  of  Psychoanalysis — Freud,  Prince, 
and,  most  of  all,  Jung.  Much  he  read  aloud,  calling  me  to 
him,  or  following  me  about  to  instil  certain  passages.  But 
it  was  one  utterance,  in  that  summer  of  1916,  that  made  me 
realize,  distinct  from  the  excitement  that  the  conquest  of 


THE  WAR;  HAWAII  323 

Knowledge  always  produced  in  him,  that  he  had  at  last  come 
upon  something  commensurate  with  his  highest  powers  of 
penetration.  His  eyes  like  stars,  his  face  still  with  a  high 
solemnity  I  had  never  before  seen  upon  it,  in  a  voice  so 
prophetic  that  my  soul  has  been  listening  ever  since,  he 
said: 

'  '  Mate  Woman,  I  tell  you  I  am  standing  on  the  edge  of  a 
world  so  new,  so  terrible,  so  wonderful,  that  I  am  almost 
afraid  to  look  over  into  it." 

As  I  came  to  look  with  him  over  that  brink  into  the 
possibilities  of  that  new  world  which  is  as  old  as  Time,  I 
began  to  see  what  it  was  beginning  to  mean  to  him  who  had 
sensed  its  abysses  as  long  ago  as  when  he  wrote  "The  Call 
of  the  Wild,"  ay,  and  before  that.  With  his  synthetic 
mind,  he  would  have  been  a  splendid  exponent  of  what  bids 
fair  to  be  the  limitless  scope  and  application  of  the  prin 
ciples  of  Psychoanalysis.  At  times,  when  he  expounded  his 
hopes  of  what  he  would  be  able  to  accomplish  in  this 
research  I  was  caught  up  into  his  vision.  But  so  terrific 
was  the  marvel  of  what  he  dared  dream  he  might  do,  that 
one's  every-day  senses  reeled  away  from  the  contem 
plation.  I  have  no  words,  no  skill,  with  which  to  transfer 
to  my  reader  this  look  into  the  gulf.  But  why,  Jack  thought, 
if  he  could  learn  to  analyze  the  secret  soul-stuff  of  the 
individual  and  bring  it  up  to  the  light  of  foreconsciousness, 
could  not  he  analyze  the  soul  of  the  race,  back  and  back, 
ever  farther  into  the  shadows,  to  its  murky  beginnings! 
His  eyes,  when  he  thus  speculated,  were  those,  not  in  the 
least  of  a  fanatic,  but  of  a  seer,  deep  as  the  ages.  He 
walked  on  air,  yet  the  actual  material  practically  of  it 
appealed  before  all. 

While  he  laid  aside  the  heavy  volumes  read  and  anno 
tated,  until  such  time — say  on  a  voyage  to  Japan  in  1917 — as 
he  could  review  them  with  me,  Jack  applied  their  principle 
more  than  was  entirely  safe  for  the  complacency  of  those 
with  whom  he  came  in  contact.  If  he  had  ever  before  used 


324  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

the  world  and  its  inhabitants  to  keep  him  interested  in  the 
game  of  life,  he  now  employed  them  in  ways  they  never 
guessed  in  casual  association  with  him.  Applying  his  new 
system  of  approach,  all  in  the  way  of  social  intercourse  he 
was  delving  into  the  soul-stuff  of  men  and  women  as  they 
never  would  have  dared  analyze  the  significance  of  their 
own  repressions.  He  went  to  startling  lengths  in  this 
risky  game  of  "  playing  with  souls. "  Old  curiosities,  long 
since  laid,  were  resurrected,  to  be  dipped  in  the  alem 
bic  of  psychoanalysis,  and  he  experimented  with  his  own 
caprices  in  the  most  unexpected  ways. 

Perhaps  the  majority  of  the  minds  which  he  laid  bare 
were  not  of  a  quality  to  make  his  investigation  profitable. 
However  that  may  be,  it  brought  to  him — and  this  was  my 
greatest  fear — yet  more  disillusion  with  the  human  element 
that  had  already  suffered  much  in  his  regard.  When  the 
measure  of  a  thinker's  associates  steadily  shrinks  in  his 
estimate,  that  thinker,  maddened  by  their  immobility  to 
ideas,  is  facing  annihilation.  The  situation  becomes  insup 
portable.  The  "will  to  live"  weakens  and  breaks  down,  no 
matter  how  fair  the  world  nor  Love  how  sweet.  Jack's 
conclusions  were  saddening  in  the  extreme.  A  paragraph 
from  H.  G.  Wells 's  "The  Discovery  of  the  Future"  so 
appositely  expresses  Jack's  attitude  from  time  to  time,  that 
I  shall  quote  it  instead  of  trying  to  reconstruct  his  own 
words : 

"I  do  not  think  I  could  possibly  join  the  worship  of  humanity 
with  any  gravity  or  sincerity.  Think  of  it !  Think  of  the  positive 
facts.  There  are  surely  moods  for  all  of  us  when  one  can  feel 
Swift's  amazement,  that  such  a  being  should  deal  in  pride.  There 
are  moods  when  one  can  join  in  the  laughter  of  Democritus ;  and 
they  would  come  oftener  were  not  the  spectacle  of  human  little 
ness  so  abundantly  shot  with  pain." 

Wells  goes  on  to  say  that  the  pain  of  the  world  is  also 
shot  with  promise ;  but  Jack  at  this  stage  was  grudging  of 
this  expectation. 


THE  WAE;  HAWAII  325 

I  was  too  close  to  it  all  to  see  the  full  drift  of  his  fall ; 
or,  better,  in  my  characteristic  way,  while  doing  my  best  in 
a  given  set  of  circumstances,  I  would  not  admit  what  I 
shrank  from  facing.  The  test  of  my  endurance  was  severe, 
for  Jack  required  so  greatly  of  me  in  the  capacities  of  wife, 
lover,  friend,  even  confessor,  for  he  withheld  nothing — 
nothing,  I  repeat — of  what  he  was  passing  through;  and 
my  responsibility,  it  may  be  guessed,  was  almost  more  than 
I  could  bear  and  preserve  a  cheerful  poise.  That  he  missed 
little  of  this,  I  am  assured.  More  than  thrice  he  sud 
denly  remarked:  "You  are  the  only  one  in  the  world  who 
could  live  with  me!"  Which  was  with  direct  reference  to 
his  intellectual  vagaries,  and  not  to  any  personal  difficul 
ties.  It  is  all  an  inexpressibly  dear  heritage — the  memory 
of  that  with  which  he  entrusted  me.  I  might  think  I 
had  failed  in  many  particulars,  except  for  the  continuance 
of  his  confidence  and  his  almost  childlike  dependence  upon 
me  when  his  burden  was  too  great.  A  generous  friend, 
talking  with  him  shortly  before  his  death,  has  given  me 
Jack's  declaration,  speaking  of  myself:  "She  has  never 
failed  me.  I  have  had  the  comfort  of  her  stedfastness,  and 
have  gained  strength  from  it.  She  is  always  ready  to  act 
with  and  for  me  at  any  moment. ' ' 

No  matter  how  strange  he  seemed  at  times,  nor  how 
isolate,  I  learned  I  must  stand  by,  night  and  day,  for  his 
instant  need.  There  would  be,  say,  a  tirade  against  the 
infinitesimal  natures  of  folk,  or  an  argument,  and  he  might 
work  himself  into  a  frenzy  wherein  I  accused  him  of  intel 
lectual  unfairness ;  or,  we  might  disagree  vitally  upon  some 
personal  matter.  Once,  twice,  I  withdrew  and  left  him  to 
work  out  his  humor  by  himself.  But  he  could  not,  or  would 
not.  I  found  myself  not  daring  to  pursue  this  course ;  and 
thereafter,  in  the  Islands  and  later  at  home,  when  the  impul 
sion  was  upon  him,  I  did  my  best  to  maintain  my  end  in 
discussion,  into  the  small  hours  if  necessary,  until  he  was 
exhausted,  when,  suddenly,  in  his  fighting-face  there  would 


326  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

dawn  the  sweetness  that  disarmed  anger  and  criticism  alike 
in  friend  and  foe.  He  would  fall  asleep  in  my  arms,  awak 
ening  penitent  for  the  pallor  of  my  cheeks  that  no  smile 
could  camouflage,  and  gratitude  for  the  smile.  A  conversa 
tion  something  like  this  would  ensue : 

"Bear  with  me,  Mate  Woman — you're  all  I've  got." 

"I  do.    I  do." 

' ' Then,  do  more  than  that!" 

"I  will!    I  will!" 

Any  chiding  that  he  was  not  taking  sufficient  nourish 
ment,  and  neglecting  his  exercise,  elicited  the  time-honored 
response : 

"I'm  all  right — don't  bother.  And  you're  never  up  in 
time  to  see  the  huge  breakfast  I  tuck  away — three  cups  of 
coffee,  with  heavy  cream,  two  soft-boiled  eggs,  half  of  a  big 
papaia!" 

But  it  was  months  before  I  learned  that  every  morning 
the  ample  bedside  repast,  which  he  so  enjoyed  with  his 
morning  Pacific  Commercial  Advertiser,  was  completely 
lost.  That  abiding  pride  in  his  "cast-iron  stomach"  had 
suffered  an  eclipse;  and  with  it  his  God-given  ability  to 
sleep  whensoever  he  elected.  This  was  indeed  a  desperate 
case,  and  I  was  frightened,  because  from  birth  on  I  myself 
had  bedded  with  insomnia,  and  feared  its  consequences 
upon  one  of  Jack's  temperament.  Only  three  times  did  he 
tamper  with  a  narcotic,  for  he  realized  its  peril.  "Oh,  have 
no  fear,  my  dear,"  he  reassured  me  more  than  once,  "I'll 
never  go  that  way.  I  want  to  live  a  hundred  years ! ' ' 

It  being  an  unwritten  rule  that  I  was  never  to  be  dis 
turbed  from  sleep,  I  awoke  in  swift  terror  one  morning  in 
Honolulu  to  find  Jack,  his  face  working  with  pain,  at  my 
door: 

' i  I  had  to  call  you,  Mate — I  am  sorry — but  you  must  get 
a  doctor.  I  don 't  know  what  it  is,  but  it  is  awful ! ' '  And 
he  crept  back  to  his  sleeping-porch.  His  friend  Dr.  Walters 


THE  WAE;  HAWAII  327 

was  out,  and  Dr.  Herbert  responded,  as  best  he  could  help 
ing  Jack  through  the  agony,  diagnosing  the  cause  as  a 
calculus. 

I  suppose  it  is  a  wise  wife  who,  rather  than  make  mar 
riage  hideous  by  nagging,  lets  her  husband  destroy  himself 
in  his  own  uncaring  way !  Even  with  the  excruciating  omen 
of  worse  to  come,  Jack  made  little  or  no  effort  to  put  off 
his  day  of  dissolution.  The  friendly  physicians  exhorted  in 
vain:  he  clung  to  his  diet  of  raw  aku  (bonita),  and,  aside 
from  the  breakfast  fruit  and  occasional  poi,  which  he  termed 
a  " beneficent  food,"  quite  neglected  the  vegetable  nutri 
ment  his  malady  demanded,  while  the  cramping  of  his  ankles 
did  not  lessen. 

As  for  exercise,  save  for  the  most  desultory  and  infre 
quent  dips  off-shore,  he  took  none.  My  question,  "Are  you 
going  to  swim  with  me  to-day ?"  was  oftenest  met  with: 

"Yes — believe  I  will  .  .  .  No,  I'm  right  in  the  thick  of 
this  new  box  of  reading-matter  from  home.  Oh,  I  don't 
know — the  water  looks  so  good  .  .  .  But  no;  I'll  go  out  in 
the  hammock  where  I  can  read  and  watch  you. ' 9  And  his 
bodily  inertia  won  out. 

But  it  would  strike  me,  looking  back  across  the  seawall 
to  where,  in  blue  kimono,  he  swung  under  the  ancient  hau 
tree,  that  he  read  little;  whenever  I  waved  back  to  him 
there  was  an  immediate  response  that  bridged  the  jade  and 
turquoise  space.  But  the  arm  stretched  out  to  me  was  all 
too  white  from  seeking  the  shadows.  If  I  did  not  ask  him 
to  go  out,  then,  the  same  day  or  another,  he  would  remind 
me  of  it,  with  a  mild  reproach. 

Not  a  block  would  he  walk  to  the  electric  tram,  but  called 
an  automobile  three  miles  from  town  whenever  he  wanted  to 
go  in  for  a  shave.  If  he  were  not  going  out,  and  expected 
no  company,  he  spent  the  day  in  bathing-trunks  and  kimono 
and  sandals,  not  only  for  coolness  at  work,  but  because  it 
was  too  much  effort  to  dress.  This  calls  up  an  incident 
that  occurred  one  day  in  Honolulu,  though  I  did  not  come 


328  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

upon  the  inwardness  of  it  until  long  afterward.  It  goes  to 
illustrate  the  sheep-mindedness  of  the  mass  of  beings  who 
wish  to  find  famous  men  and  women  fashioned  in  the  image 
of  the  quibbling,  foppish,  gnat-brained  incarnation  that  is 
their  own.  Jack  himself,  small  as  was  his  respect  for  these, 
never  failed  to  react  to  the  clumsy  stab  of  their  inert  yet 
harmful  smugness — harmful  because  it  influences  and  fixes 
the  attitude  of  masses  of  humans  who  might,  otherwise 
guided,  attain  a  freer  view  of  life. 

A  woman  of  Russian  birth,  passing  through,  wanted  to 
meet  this  man  Jack  London,  who  so  dominated  the  fancy  of 
her  countrymen.  According  to  her  story,  certain  tourist 
acquaintances  warned  her : ' ' But  he  isn't  decent — he 's  likely 
as  not,  we  hear,  to  receive  you  dressed  only  in  a  kimono !" 
The  lady  was  not  to  be  balked ;  and  one  day,  unannounced, 
she  called  during  Jack's  working  hours.  In  spite  of  his 
irritation  at  being  so  unceremoniously  interrupted,  she 
found  him  courteous  and  interesting,  and  did  not  stop 
over-long. 

"What  did  you  think  of  him?  What  is  he  like?"  her 
informants  asked. 

"I  think  he  is  a  very  decent  fellow, "  the  Russian  began. 

'  '  But  was  n  't  he  in  his  kimono  1 ' ' 

"Why,  yes — I  believe  he  was,"  coolly  she  rejoined. 
"And  I  want  to  say  that,  in  his  kimono,  he  seemed  to  me 
more  fully  clothed  than  most  of  the  men  one  meets  in  full 
conventional  attire." 

Except  that  he  sat  through  long  dinners  without  eating, 
Jack  was  normal  enough  to  all  intents.  When  anxious 
hostesses  drew  his  attention  to  the  untouched  plate,  he 
would  repeat  that  story  of  the  large  breakfast,  and  declare 
that  except  at  a  Hawaiian  luau  (feast),  where  he  made  a 
practice  of  banqueting  shamelessly,  he  would  rather  talk 
than  eat ;  and  thereupon  he  closed  the  topic  by  taking  up  the 
thread  of  his  discourse  where  it  had  been  cut. 


THE  WAE;  HAWAII  329 

He  drank  very  moderately.  "Sometimes  I  think  I'm 
saturated  with  alcohol,  so  that  my  membranes  have  begun 
to  rebel,"  he  observed  upon  more  than  one  occasion.  "See 
— how  little  in  the  glass — and  this  is  my  first  drink  to-day ! ' ' 
A  month  before  the  end,  in  response  to  a  telegram  from 
Dr.  W.  H.  Geystweit,  Pastor  of  the  First  Baptist  Church, 
San  Diego,  California,  Jack  wired : 

"Never  had  much  experience  with  wine-grape  growing.  The 
vineyards  I  bought  were  old,  worked  out,  worthless,  so  I  pulled 
out  the  vines  and  planted  other  crops.  I  still  work  a  few  acres 
of  profitable  wine  grapes.  My  position  on  alcohol  is  absolute, 
nation-wide  Prohibition.  I  mean  absolute.  I  have  no  patience  in 
half-way  measures.  Half-way  measures  are  unfair,  are  tantamount 
to  confiscation,  and  are  provocative  of  underhand  cheating,  lying, 
and  law-breaking.  When  the  nation  goes  in  for  nation-wide  Pro 
hibition,  that  will  be  the  end  of  alcohol,  and  there  will  be  no  cheat 
ing,  lying  nor  law-breaking.  Personally  I  shall  continue  to  drink 
alcohol  for  as  long  as  it  is  accessible.  When  absolute  Prohibition 
makes  alcohol  inaccessible  I  shall  drop  drinking  and  it  won 't  be  any 
hardship  on  me  and  on  men  like  me  whose  name  is  legion.  And  the 
generation  of  boys  after  us  will  not  know  anything  about  alcohol 
save  that  it  was  a  stupid  vice  of  their  savage  ancestors." 

In  Hawaii  for  the  most  part  he  ordered  "soft"  drinks 
or  "small  beer"  during  the  nights  we  spent  in  the  open-air 
cafes,  I  dancing,  he  visiting  at  the  tables  with  his  friends. 
But  ever  he  kept  an  eye  upon  me,  as  if  looking  for  some  one 
stable  in  a  crashing  world.  Seldom,  swinging  near,  did  I 
fail  to  catch  his  glance  and  a  little  indulgent  smile  he  had 
for  the  "kid  woman"  who,  loving  the  dance,  had  gone 
without  it  for  so  many  traveling  years  after  marrying  him. 

In  a  coterie  of  excellent  players  among  Honolulu's  men 
and  women,  both  American  and  Hawaiian,  much  of  Jack's 
recreation  time  was  at  cards — mostly  bridge,  with  now  and 
then  a  poker  game. 

To  show  the  restlessness  that  was  in  him,  I  can  instance 


330  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

the  entertaining  we  did.  Day  after  day  at  our  house  it 
would  be  a  luncheon,  a  bridge  party,  tea,  swimming,  a  din 
ner,  and  theatre,  or  dancing  either  at  home  or  on  the  Roof 
Garden  or  at  "Heinie's,"  and,  likely,  a  midnight  swim 
before  bed.  Some  of  the  luncheon  guests  might  be  included 
in  the  afternoon  cards  outside  in  the  little  jungle  of  that 
magnificent  hau  tree,  but  new  players  had  also  been  bidden. 
A  fresh  bevy  blew  in  for  tea  and  bathing,  and  the  diners 
would  be  still  another  party.  Friends  for  noonday  or  din 
ner  usually  numbered  an  even  dozen,  since  the  round  table 
accommodated  just  that  number.  We  lived  in  a  whirl ;  and 
many  times,  while  I  was  at  the  telephone  inviting  for  three 
different  events  for  a  certain  day,  Jack  would  come  patter 
ing  in  his  straw  sandals  across  the  large  palm-potted  rooms, 
and  whisper :  "While  you're  about  it,  better  plan  the  crowds 
for  the  day  after." 

A  Honolulu  neighbor,  Charles  Dana  Wright,  one  day 
asked  Jack: 

"Why  do  you  always  have  twelve  at  your  table?" 

"Because  it  won't  hold  any  more!"  was  Jack's  reply. 

He  seemed  running  away  from  himself,  filling  in  every 
moment,  as  if  uneasy  with  too  many  disengaged  dates  in 
prospect.  Yet  he  would  suddenly  tire  of  it  all,  and  there 
would  be  a  lull.  One  night,  after  an  undisturbed  day  when 
we  had  worked,  and  swam,  read  aloud,  played  pinochle, 
and  eaten  alone  together,  he  breathed  with  satisfied 
demeanor :  "Happiest  day  I  ever  spent  in  Hawaii!" 

He  had  a  way,  at  work  in  his  cool  green  lanai  (veranda) 
— a  mile  from  where  B.L.S.  once  wrote  by  Waikiki  waters 
— of  looking  aside  upon  me  as  I  walked  about  the  long 
rooms ;  and  when  I  caught  him  at  it,  his  lips  would  frame 
kisses  in  the  air.  What  was  behind  the  inscrutable,  star- 
blue  eyes  that  were  never  so  beautiful  as  that  summer  in 
his  Happy  Isles,  when  he  made  no  attempt  to  retard  an 
illness  that  could  not  be  less  than  fatal  if  not  checked  ?  Was 
that  mind  that  had  "known  the  worst  too  young,"  and  that 


THE  WAR;  HAWAII  331 

he  had  systematically  overworked,  now  longing  for  sur 
cease,  "restless  for  rest,"  as  William  Herbert  Carruth  so 
aptly  put  it?  Does  that  account  for  the  apparently  delibe 
rate  want  of  resistance?  He,  the  eternal  fighter,  patently 
refused  to  fight  for  the  reconstruction  of  a  failing  body, 
or  to  exert  his  powerful  will  to  conserve  his  physical 
strength.  On  the  contrary,  it  would  seem  as  if  the  longing, 
at  least  of  his  unconscious  mind,  for  cessation  of  effort  to 
continue  existence,  swung  him  into  a  non-resistance  which 
made  for  destruction.  When  he  looked  at  me  as  he  would 
look,  was  he  hiding  something  he  knew  would  fill  me  with 
terror — did  he  have  an  intuition  that  I  would  be  unthinkably 
alone  with  the  falling  of  the  autumn  leaves  ?  One  late  after 
noon,  in  the  hammock,  he  read  me  "In  Autumn, "  from 
George  Sterling's  "The  Caged  Eagle,"  just  received  from 
the  poet.  His  voice  broke  at  the  last,  and  the  eyes  he  raised 
to  mine  in  a  long,  long  gaze,  were  deep  pools  in  which  I  felt 
us  both  drowning.  But  when  at  length  he  spoke,  it  was  of 
the  wonder  of  the  man  who  had  written  the  poem. 

I  shall  never  know.  All  I  do  know  is  that  he  was  upon 
the  night  ward  slope  of  living,  and  that  all  I  had  to  cling  to 
was  what  sometimes  fell  from  his  lips  when  I  had  thought 
him  absorbed  in  book  or  writing — abruptly,  as  if  wrung 
from  him : 

1 t  God ! — Woman,  if  you  knew  how  I  love  you ! ' ' 

And  again,  his  eyes  burning : 

"Child,  child — you  don't  know  what  love  is!" 

Or  he  would  murmur  in  a  golden  voice,  across  the  length 
of  the  house,  so  that  I  must  harken  closely  to  hear : 

"I  love  you  ...  I  love  you." 

Once: 

"Take  my  heart  in  both  your  hands,  My  Woman." 

To  me,  who  asked  nothing  from  fate  but  to  serve,  he 
said  one  day: 

"I  can  refuse  you  nothing.  Anything  you  ask  for,  in 
seriousness,  you  may  have.  I  am  so  entirely  yours;  you 


332  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

can  have  anything  you  want  of  me.  I'd  do  anything  for 
you — actually,  I  believe  I'd  murder,  if  you  asked  me?" 
He  added:  "Some  day,  when  we  are  seventy,  you  and 
I,  in  the  autumn  of  our  long  years  together,  I'll  tell  you 
some  things  about  myself — how  I  have  come  to  know  how 
unthinkably  I  love  you." 

All  this  intensity  was  part  of  the  raw  state  in  which  he 
was,  dying,  the  dear  heart,  and  how  were  we  to  know?  One 
morning,  it  seems  he  thought  I  had  told  him  a  deliberate 
falsehood  in  a  vital  connotation,  and  I  was  at  a  loss  to 
account  for  his  alarming  recklessness  throughout  the  day. 
That  night,  worried,  for  once  I  eavesdropped,  and  heard 
him  with  his  own  soul:  "To  think  of  it!  To  think  of  it!" 
he  wrestled  with  despair.  The  next  day,  quite  as  unwit 
tingly  as  I  had  dealt  the  erroneous  impression,  I  undid  the 
same.  Then  it  all  came  out,  with  boyish  jubilance  in  his 
relief,  how  he  had  agonized  that  "All  I've  got  in  the  world" 
had  thrown  him  down ! 

When  he  heard  that  the  old  bungalow,  whispering  of 
romance,  was  on  the  market,  he  came  to  me,  his  eyes  dilating 
with  the  pleasure  of  giving : 

"Do  you  want  me  to  buy  it  for  you,  or  do  you  prefer  to 
wait  till  the  war  is  done,  and  then  get  a  sweet  three-topmast 
schooner,  fit  her  out,  throw  aboard  your  grand  piano,  a  big 
launch,  and  a  touring  car,  and  start  around  the  world  for 
years ! ' ' 

Naturally  I  chose  the  schooner,  and  told  him  that  if  for 
only  selfish  reasons,  the  war  could  not  terminate  any  too 
soon  to  please  me! — There  he  was,  at  it  again — his 
"crowded  hour  of  glorious  life"  all  too  short  for  the  large 
plans  for  work,  thought,  play !  I  finger  the  sun-tanned  note 
pad  upon  which  he  scribbled  expense  calculations  for  that 
post-bellum  voyage :  Six  men,  so  much ;  Captain,  so  much ; 
Engineer,  Mate,  Cook,  Servants,  Doctor — with  loose  mar 
gins  for  his  figures.  "But,  Mate,"  I  objected,  "that  means 
no  letup  for  you — harder  work  than  ever. "  "  What  of  it  ? " 


THE  WAE;  HAWAII  333 

cheerily  he  laughed  it  off.    "I  make  my  work  easy — Pve 
got  'em  all  skinned  to  death !" 

Those  little  note-pads  of  Jack's — I  find  them  at  every 
turn.  "Always  carry  a  notebook, "  he  advised.  "Travel 
with  it.  Eat  with  it.  Sleep  with  it.  Slap  into  it  every 
stray  thought  that  flutters  up  into  your  brain.  Cheap 
paper  is  less  perishable  than  gray  matter,  and  lead  pencil 
markings  endure  longer  than  memory. ' ' 

Certain  photographs,  one  of  himself  and  me  in  the  gar 
den,  and  one  of  myself  on  Neuadd  Hillside,  he  kept  near  his 
work-table,  and  often  looked  at  them.  And  at  home  after 
ward,  "Charmian,  Charmicm  .  .  ."  he  would  murmur  as  he 
had  murmured  the  day  we  first  met,  "I  love  your  name. 
YouVe  no  idea  how  I  stop  all  work  and  reading,  and  lie 
here  just  looking  at  your  face  in  the  frame." 

There  were  six  weeks  on  end  in  Hawaii  that  Jack  seemed 
quite  his  healthy,  hearty  self.  This  was  during  what  can 
best  be  termed  a  "royal  progress "  upon  which,  in  company 
with  Miss  Mary  Low,  a  part-Hawaiian  friend,  diamond- 
trove  of  information  and  imagination,  who  made  it  possible 
at  that  time,  we  encircled  the  "Big  Island."  The  details 
of  this  journey  I  have  related  in  "Our  Hawaii."  It  was  a 
passage  of  unalloyed  pleasure,  fraught  with  plans  for  the 
future  when  we  should  return  to  do  the  thousand  things 
that  this  time  must  be  left  undone.  In  my  hand  at  this 
moment  is  one  of  Jack's  yellow  note-pad  leaves,  scribbled 
with  the  most  fragmentary  penciled  items : 

"How  not  to  know  Hawaii  .  .  .  How  the  Tourist  does 
it — the  tourist  route — never  dreams. 

"How  to  know  Hawaii.  Wait — under  that  surface 
excess  of  hospitality — the  deeps  of  a  remarkable  people 
— really  exclusive  .  .  .  Make  no  quick  judgments.  Come 
back,  and  come  back,  and  then,  some  day,  you  will  begin  to 
find  yourselves  not  only  in  their  homes  but  in  their  hearts. 
And  you  will  be  well  beloved  ..." 


334     THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

"I  almost  think, "  he  said  in  retrospect,  "that  this  has 
been  the  happiest  month  and  a  half  I  ever  knew!" 

On  that  trip,  having  finished  "  Michael  Brother  of 
Jerry,"  he  wrote  his  last  gift  to  the  Islands,  the  three 
articles  which  were  published  in  The  Cosmopolitan  Maga 
zine,  "My  Hawaiian  Aloha."  A  few  short  months  there 
after  one  of  the  Territory  7s  most  distinguished  mouthpieces 
said  of  him.  "In  the  death  of  Jack  London  Hawaii  suf 
fered  an  irreparable  loss.  .  .  .  Among  our  most  lasting 
memories  of  him  will  be  his  earnest  and  enthusiastic  assis 
tance  in  the  organization  of  the  Pan-Pacific  Union.  There 
was  nothing  that  he  disliked  more  than  making  speeches; 
but  at  meeting  after  meeting  his  voice  was  heard  advocating 
the  principle  of  the  brotherhood  of  mankind  and  the  recog 
nition  of  that  principle  as  the  guiding  star  of  the  peoples 
of  the  Pacific." 

Next,  Jack  produced  a  short  story,  "The  Hussy,"  dat 
ing  the  end  of  the  manuscript  at  "Kohala,  Hawaii,  May  5, 
1916."  "The  Hussy"  is  in  book  entitled  "The  Bed  One," 
issued  posthumously.  Followed  the  short  story,  "The 
Bed  One,"  in  which  is  evidenced  the  author's  profound 
meditation  upon  the  reaching  out  of  the  most  primordial 
toward  the  most  cosmic — all  in  stride  with  his  study  in  race 
consciousness.  Sometimes  I  wonder  if  it  can  be  possible, 
in  the  ponderings  of  the  dying  scientist,  Bassett,  that 
Jack  London  revealed  more  of  himself  than  he  would 
have  been  willing  to  admit — or  else,  who  knows?  more  of 
himself  than  he  himself  realized.  His  ultimate  discourage 
ment  with  the  endless  strife  of  humanity  even  unto  the 
modern  horrors  of  the  Great  War,  are  in  the  mouth  of 
his  puppet,  speculating  upon  the  inhabitants  of  other 
planets,  and  playing  square  with  the  old  cannibal,  Ngurn, 
because,  forsooth,  the  old  man  had,  according  to  his 
lights,  ' l  played  squarer  than  square, ' '  and  * l  was  in  himself 
a  forerunner  of  ethics  and  contract,  of  consideration,  and 
gentleness  in  man. ' ' 


THE  WAR;  HAWAII  335 

"Had  they  won  Brotherhood?  Or  had  they  learned 
that  the  law  of  love  imposed  the  penalty  of  weakness  and 
decay?  Was  strife,  life!  Was  the  rule  of  the  universe  the 
pitiless  rule  of  natural  selection  V9 

Some  one  has  written  of  Jack  London:  4'This  Lord  of 
Life  was  never  far  from  the  consciousness  that  he  held  a 
brief  and  uncertain  sovereignty. ' '  He  himself  has  said: 

* '  Man,  the  latest  of  the  ephemera,  is  pitifully  a  creature 
of  temperature,  strutting  out  his  brief  day  on  the  ther 
mometer.  "  And:  "All  the  human  drift,  from  the  first  ape- 
man  to  the  last  savant,  is  but  a  phantom,  a  flash  and  a  flut 
ter  of  movement  across  the  infinite  sky  of  the  starry  night. ' ' 
He  thrilled  to  George  Sterling's  line,  "The  fleeting  Systems 
lapse  like  foam." 

A  couple  of  months  before  the  "royal  progress/'  Jack 
had  sent  in  his  resignation  from  the  Socialist  party,  the 
reasons  given  surprising  some  of  his  radical  acquaintances 
who  had  scoffed  that  he  was  becoming  "soft." 

"Radical!"  he  would  snort,  lurching  about  in  his  chair, 
"next  time  I  go  to  New  York,  I'm  going  to  live  right 
down  in  the  camp  of  these  people  who  call  themselves  radi 
cals.  I'm  going  to  tell  them  a  few  things,  and  make  their 
radicalism  look  like  thirty  cents  in  a  fog!  I'll  show  them 
what  radicalism  is!" 

Among  his  equipment  of  notes  are  the  following  ad 
dresses  : 

The  Liberal  Club,  The  Greenwich  Village  Inn  (Polly's 
Restaurant)  The  Hotel  Brevoort,  James  Donald  Corley, 
Hippolyte  Havel,  Sadakichi  Hartmann,  Charles  and  Albert 
Boni,  John  Rampapas,  Hutchins  Hapgood,  II  Proletario, 
J.  J.  Ettor  and  Iva  Shuster,  Carlo  Tresca,  Arturo  Gio- 
vannitti,  McSorley's  Saloon. 

Jack's  action  in  resigning,  though  it  had  been  gather 
ing  momentum  for  some  time,  was  precipitated  by  the  with 
drawal  of  a  friend  whose  reasons  were  based  upon  the 
prevalent  "roughneck"  methods  of  other  than  the  "well- 


336  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

balanced  radicals."  I  can  still  hear  Jack's  battle-tread, 
somewhat  muffled  by  straw  slippers,  as  he  marched  toward 
my  door,  and  his  peremptory  voice:  "Take  a  letter — 
please!"  I  can  see  him  plant  himself  on  the  edge  of 
my  bed,  curls  towsled,  wide  eyes  black  with  purpose  under 
the  brows  that  were  like  a  sea-bird's  wings,  his  full  chest 
half-exposed  by  the  blue  kimono,  and  one  perfect  leg  thrust 
forth  to  steady  himself.  And  here  is  what  he  rapped  out, 
as  fast  as  I  could  click  the  keys : 

' 'Honolulu,  March  7,  1916. 
"Glen  Ellen, 

"Sonoma  County,  California. 
"Dear  Comrades: 

"I  am  resigning  from  the  Socialist  Party,  because  of  its  lack  of 
fire  and  fight,  and  its  loss  of  emphasis  on  the  class  struggle. 

' '  I  was  originally  a  member  of  the  old  revolutionary,  up-on-its- 
hind-legs,  fighting,  Socialist  Labor  Party.  Since  then,  and  to  the 
present  time,  I  have  been  a  fighting  member  of  the  Socialist 
Party.  My  fighting  record  in  the  Cause  is  not,  even  at  this  late  date, 
already  entirely  forgotten.  Trained  in  the  class  struggle,  as  taught 
and  practiced  by  the  Socialist  Labor  Party,  my  own  highest  judg 
ment  concurring,  I  believed  that  the  working  class,  by  fighting,  by 
never  fusing,  by  never  making  terms  with  the  enemy,  could  emanci 
pate  itself.  Since  the  whole  trend  of  Socialism  in  the  United  States 
during  recent  years  has  been  one  of  peaceableness  and  compromise, 
I  find  that  my  mind  refuses  further  sanction  of  my  remaining  a 
party  member.  Hence  my  resignation. 

'  *  Please  include  my  comrade  wife,  Ghanaian  K.  London 's,  resig 
nation  with  mine. 

"My  final  word  is  that  Liberty,  freedom,  and  independence,  are 
royal  things  that  cannot  be  presented  to,  nor  thrust  upon,  races 
or  classes.  If  races  and  classes  cannot  rise  up  and  by  their 
strength  of  brain  and  brawn,  wrest  from  the  world  liberty,  free 
dom,  and  independence,  they  never  in  time  can  come  to  these  royal 
possessions  .  .  .  and  if  such  royal  things  are  kindly  presented  to 
them  by  superior  individuals,  on  silver  platters,  they  will  know 
not  what  to  do  with  them,  will  fail  to  make  use  of  them,  and  will 


l!)ir>.      JACK    LONDON 
Taken   0   days    before   he   died 


THE  WAR;  HAWAII  337 

be  what  they  have  always  been  in  the  past  .  .  .  inferior  races  and 
inferior  classes. 

11  Yours  for  the  Revolution, 

"Jack  London/1 

i 

The  foregoing,  published  in  the  Socialist  press,  caused 
much  comment.  Jack's  grim  amusement  can  be  pic 
tured  when  it  was  reported  that  a  distinguished  mem 
ber  of  the  Party,  upon  reading  it  remarked:  "I'd  have  done 
the  same  long  ago,  for  the  same  reasons,  if  I  had  not  been 
so  prominent  a  figure  in  the  movement. " 

"And  now,"  I  queried,  when  Jack  had  got  the  letter  off 
his  mind  and  cooled  down,  "what  will  you  call  yourself 
henceforth — Eevolutionist,  Socialist,  what!" 

"I  am  not  anything,  I  fear,"  he  said  quietly.  "I  am  all 
these  things.  Individuals  disappoint  me  more  and  more, 
and  more  and  more  I  turn  to  the  land.  .  .  .  Well,"  he 
reconsidered,  "I  might  call  myself  a  Syndicalist.  It  does 
seem  as  if  class  solidarity,  expressed  in  terms  of  the  general 
strike,  would  be  the  one  means  of  the  workers  tying  up  the 
world  and  getting  what  they  want.  It  would  raise  Cain,  of 
course,  but  nothing  ever  seems  to  be  accomplished  without 
raising  Cain.  A  world-wide  strike  would  produce  inconceiv 
able  results. — But  they  won't  stick  together — there  is  too 
much  selfishness  and  too  much  inertia." 

Surely,  surely,  Jack's  experience  with  the  "inertia  of 
the  masses ' '  was  not  unique  in  the  annals  of  reform  move 
ments.  In  Doctor  William  J.  Robinson's  "The  Medical 
Critic  and  Guide,"  I  come  across  this  sentence:  "It  is  not 
the  slave  that  rebels  against  his  slavery ;  it  is  the  free  man 
who  sees  the  injustice  of  slavery  who  starts  the  fight  for  its 
abolition."  Other  social  seers  had  suffered  unto  death.  I 
could  not  but  pray  that  the  healthier  side  of  Jack's  philoso 
phy  of  life  might  preserve  him  from  despair. 

Concerning  sabotage,  he  stood  somewhat  like  this: 
Peaceful  methods  having  failed,  and  with  his  views  on  the 


338  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

frightfulness  of  capitalist  exploitation  of  labor,  he  would 
not  hesitate,  were  he  an  underpaid  wage-slave,  insidiously 
to  wreck  the  machinery  of  production  by  the  means  of  which 
he  had  become  the  underpaid,  underfed,  overworked,  ex 
ploited  tool  and  fool  of  his  economic  masters.  But  when 
confronted  with  the  futile,  desultory  methods  of  bombing 
innocent  persons  by  mistake,  his  impatience  knew  no 
bounds.  Following  one  such  mishap  that  had  shaken  the 
country,  I  asked  him  what  he  thought  of  it ;  and  he  used  a 
word  I  had  never  heard  in  seriousness  from  his  lips : 

i 'I  think  it  is  wicked." 

Many  resignations  followed  Jack's — quite  an  avalanche, 
in  fact,  when  the  Socialist  Party  at  the  St.  Louis  Conven 
tion  in  1917  pledged  itself  to  oppose,  by  every  means  within 
its  power,  the  prosecution  of  the  war  against  Germany. 

When  James  Howard  Moore,  because  of  heartbreak  over 
the  world,  had  put  a  bullet  through  his  brain,  Jack  was 
deeply  moved.  In  his  handwriting,  at  the  head  of  a  printed 
address  delivered  by  Clarence  S.  Darrow  at  the  funeral 
services,  I  find  this : 

"Disappointment  like  what  made  Wayland  (Appeal  to 
Reason)  kill  himself — and  many  like  me  resign." 

Eeading  over  the  mass  of  material  for  this  Biography, 
I  am  struck  anew  by  Jack's  old  faith  in  the  workingman, 
and  anew  saddened  by  his  ultimate  disillusion.  Let  me 
quote  a  letter,  written  several  years  before  he  died,  stating 
the  nobilities  upon  which  he  had  founded  his  hope : 

1 '  To  the  Central  Labor  Council, 
"Alameda  County: 

' '  I  cannot  express  to  you  how  deeply  I  regret  my  inability  to  be 
with  you  this  day.  But,  believe  me,  I  am  with  you  in  the  brother 
hood  of  the  spirit,  as  all  you  boys,  in  a  similar  brotherhood  of  the 
spirit,  are  with  our  laundry  girls  in  Troy,  New  York. 

"Is  this  not  a  spectacle  for  gods  and  men? — the  workmen  of 
Alameda  County  sending  a  share  of  their  hard-earned  wages  three 


THE  WAK;  HAWAII  339 

thousand  miles  across  the  continent  to  help  the  need  of  a  lot  of 
striking  laundry  girls  in  Troy ! 

"And  right  here  I  wish  to  point  out  something  that  you  all 
know, but  something  that  is  so  great  that  it  cannot  be  pointed  out  too 
often,  and  that  grows  only  greater  every  time  it  is  pointed  out, — 
AND  THAT  IS,  THAT  THE  STRENGTH  OF  ORGANIZED 
LABOR  LIES  IN  ITS  BROTHERHOOD.  There  is  no  brotherhood 
in  unorganized  labor,  no  standing  together  shoulder  to  shoulder, 
and  as  a  result  unorganized  labor  is  weak  as  water. 

* '  And  not  only  does  brotherhood  give  organized  labor  more  fight 
ing  strength  but  it  gives  it,  as  well,  the  strength  of  righteousness. 
The  holiest  reason  that  men  can  find  for  drawing  together  into 
any  kind  of  an  organization  is  BROTHERHOOD.  And  in  the  end 
nothing  can  triumph  against  such  an  organization.  Let  the  church 
tell  you  that  servants  should  obey  their  masters.  This  is  what  the 
church  told  the  striking  laundry  girls  of  Troy.  Stronger  than  this 
mandate  is  brotherhood,  as  the  girls  of  Troy  found  out  when  the 
boys  of  California  shared  their  wages  with  them.  (Ah,  these  girls 
of  Troy!  Twenty  weeks  on  strike  and  not  a  single  desertion  from 
their  ranks!  And  ah,  these  boys  of  California,  stretching  out  to 
them,  across  a  continent  the  helping  hand  of  brotherhood ! ) 

"And  so  I  say,  against  such  spirit  of  brotherhood,  all  machina 
tions  of  the  men-of-graft-and-grab-and-the-dollar  are  futile. 
Strength  lies  in  comradeship  and  brotherhood,  not  in  a  throat-cut 
ting  struggle  where  every  man's  hand  is  against  man.  This  com 
radeship  and  brotherhood  is  yours.  I  cannot  wish  you  good  luck 
and  hope  that  your  strength  will  grow  in  the  future,  because  broth 
erhood  and  the  comrade-world  are  bound  to  grow.  The  growth 
cannot  be  stopped.  So  I  can  only  congratulate  you  boys  upon  the 
fact  that  this  is  so. 

"Yours  in  the  brotherhood  of  man," 

That  Jack  London  expected  no  glory  nor  even  lasting 
appreciation  from  his  comrades  for  his  life-long  work  in 
the  interests  of  Socialism,  was  evident  to  me  early  in  our 
association.  It  was  with  utter  absence  of  bitterness  that 
he  said: 

"In  a  few  years  the  crowd  I  have  worked  for  and  with, 


340      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

the  Socialists,  will  have  entirely  forgotten  that  a  fellow 
named  Jack  London  ever  did  a  stroke  to  help  along.  I  shall 
be  entirely  forgotten,  or  counted  out,  or,  at  best,  merely 
mentioned.'7 

And  when,  even  in  his  own  short  time  he  had  proved  his 
own  words,  in  spite  of  a  cool  intellectual  attitude  he  showed 
the  hurt  to  his  affections.  There  is  bitterness  and  to  spare, 
though  essentially  toward  the  race  of  men  who  had  dis 
appointed  his  warm  confidence,  in  the  following,  already 
referred  to  in  part,  written  in  his  last  months  for  a  Socialist 
publication : 

"Some  years  ago  Alexander  Berkman  asked  me  to  write  an 
introduction  to  his  'Prison  Memoirs  of  an  Anarchist.'  This  is  the 
introduction.  I  was  naive  enough  to  think  that  when  one  intellect 
ual  disagreed  with  another  intellectual  the  only  difference  would 
be  intellectual.  I  have  since  learned  better.  Alexander  Berkman 
could  not  see  his  way  to  using  my  introduction,  and  got  some  one 
else  to  write  a  more  sympathetic  one  for  him.  Also,  socially,  com 
radely,  he  has  forgotten  my  existence  ever  since. 

"By  the  same  token,  because  the  socialists  and  I  disagreed 
about  opportunism,  ghetto  politics,  class  consciousness,  political 
slates,  and  party  machines,  they,  too,  have  dismissed  all  memory, 
not  merely  of  my  years  of  fight  in  the  cause,  but  of  me  as  a  social 
man,  as  a  comrade  of  men,  as  a  fellow  they  ever  embraced  for  hav 
ing  at  various  times  written  or  said  things  they  described  as 
doughty  blows  for  the  Cause.  On  the  contrary,  by  their  only 
printed  utterances  I  have  seen,  they  deny  I  ever  struck  a  blow  or 
did  anything  for  the  Cause,  at  the  same  time  affirming  that  all  the 
time  they  knew  me  for  what  I  was — a  Dreamer. 

"I'm  afraid  I  did  dream  some  dreams  about  their  brains, 
which  now  I  find  knocked  into  a  cocked  hat  by  their  possession  of 
the  pitiful  humanness  that  is  the  birthright  of  all  sons  of  men. 
My  dream  was  that  my  comrades  were  intellectually  honest.  My 
awakening  was  that  they  were  as  unfair,  when  prejudice  entered, 
as  all  the  other  human  cattle  entered  to-day  in  the  human  race. ' ' 

There  are  some  of  Jack's  compeers  who  do  not  forget, 
who  give  him  his  place,  and  a  high  place.  And  there  are 


THE  WAE;  HAWAII  341 

others  who,  perceiving  him  nurse  his  efficiency  by  decent 
living  after  his  too-lean  years,  became  fearful  that  he  might 
lose  his  head  through  worldly  success,  but  held  judg 
ment  and  were  rewarded  for  their  openmindedness.  One 
socialist,  not  fussing  as  to  whether  Jack  belonged  to  the 
Socialist  Party,  or  any  party,  had  this  to  say:  "He  was  one 
of  us.  A  genuine,  strenuous  American,  he  fought  a  good 
fight  in  the  sacred  cause  of  human  progress.  Against  the 
predatory  Big  Interests'  attempt  to  enslave  the  workers 
and  the  Booze  Interests '  attempt  to  degrade  the  workers, 
his  pen  was  a  mighty  weapon.  Like  a  true  comrade  he  died 
fighting.  Alas,  my  Comrade !"  But  sadly  enough  I  note 
that  only  too  often  his  name  is  missing  from  the  roster  that 
includes  his  intellectual  friends  such  as  Walling,  Spargo, 
Hunter,  Stokes,  Heron. 

Jack's  especial  bete  noir  was  the  type  of  socialist,  of 
either  sex,  who  heckled  him  because  he  declined  to  lecture 
before  small  groups.  Wasted  upon  these  hecklers  was  his 
argument  that  with  a  stroke  of  his  pen,  while  following  tem 
peramental  bents  in  manner  of  living,  he  could  reach 
millions,  whereas  his  voice  could  be  heard  by  but  a  few. 
This  being  so,  he  did  not  see  why  he  should  misapply  energy 
by  speaking  to  a  few,  when  he  so  disliked  public  appear 
ances.  Further,  reports  of  his  speeches  were  almost  invari 
ably  garbled.  His  gospel  as  propounded  in  his  books  was 
not  garbled.  Ergo,  and  finally,  he  would  write  rather  than 
talk.  Incidentally,  his  voice  had  gone  back  on  him,  so  that 
it  became  husky  at  any  attempt  to  project  it  into  large 
spaces.  Far  from  regretting  this  break-down  in  his 
anatomy,  he  hailed  it  with  frank  delight  as  another  ex 
cuse  from  lecturing.  The  failure  of  his  throat  was  pre 
cipitated,  happily  enough,  by  an  excess  of  laughter  at  the 
Bohemian  Jinks.  He  had  returned  unable  for  a  while  to 
speak  above  a  faint  wheeze,  the  vocal  cords  ruptured 
forever. 

He  would  add  that  he  had  done  his  share  of  platform 


342  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

work,  and  why  not  step  out  and  let  the  younger  generation 
have  a  chance.  Here  is  his  somewhat  impatient  reply  to  a 
suppliant  who  had  tried  sarcasm  upon  him : 

1  'Dear  Comrade: 

"In  reply  to  yours  of  September  14.  I  don't  see  anything  to 
laugh  at.  With  courtesy  and  consideration,  on  an  average  of  five 
letters  a  day,  I  turn  down  propositions  of  comrades  that  run  all 
the  way  from  gold  mines  to  perpetual  motion.  I  sent  you  what 
I  thought  was  a  fair,  courteous,  sweet-natured  and  comradely  let 
ter.  If  you  choose  to  laugh  at  that  letter  and  me — why,  go  to  it ! 
I,  however,  am  very  sorry  that  you  should  laugh. 

"You  say  you  had  hoped  that  your  letter  would  have  inspired 
me  to  nobler  things  (those  are  your  words) .  What  nobler  things? — 
to  attend  a  meeting  at  your  place  which  you  say  nobody  attended  ? 
To  put  money  in  your  project  and  raise  for  you  a  temporary  fund, 
when  I  am  worrying  over  my  own  overdue  life-insurance?  FOP 
heaven's  sake,  dear  woman,  be  fair,  play  fair,  and  get  away  from 
your  own  self-centering  long  enough  to  remember  that  all  the 
others  in  the  world  may  not  be  persuaded  nor  clubbed  into  fol 
lowing  your  immediate  lead  and  desire,  and  that  because  they  are 
not  to  be  so  persuaded  nor  clubbed  is  no  license  for  you  to  laugh 

at  them*  ' '  Yours  for  the  Revolution, ' ' 

Much  earlier  than  that,  in  answer  to  a  call  that  he  could 
not  afford,  he  had  written : 

1  i  It 's  this  way :  I  feel  that  I  have  done  and  am  doing  a  pretty 
fair  share  of  work  for  the  Revolution.  I  guess  my  lectures  alone 
before  Socialist  organizations  have  netted  the  Cause  a  few  hundred 
dollars,  and  my  wounded  feelings  from  the  personal  abuse  of  the 
Capitalist  papers  ought  to  be  rated  at  several  hundred  more.  There 
is  not  a  day  passes  that  I  am  not  reading  up  socialism  and  filing 
socialistic  clippings  and  notes.  The  amount  of  work  that  I  in  a 
year  contribute  to  the  cause  of  socialism  would  earn  me  a  whole 
lot  of  money  if  spent  in  writing  fiction  for  the  market." 

It  is  not  remarkable,  however,  that  Jack  London  was 
much  misinterpreted  by  the  general  run  of  men  lost  in 


THE  WAR;  HAWAII  343 

pettifogging.  He  would  not  even  be  circumscribed  by  his 
broadest  conceptions,  if  I  may  be  allowed  a  paradox.  And 
there  was  where  he  invited  trouble  with  economists,  who 
wanted  him  to  be  what  they  called  consistent.  The  many 
sparkling  facets  of  his  mind  dazzled  and  befuddled  merely 
average  thought  processes.  I  speak  with  feeling.  Some 
times  we  would  battle  for  hours,  he  and  I,  earnestly,  hotly, 
because,  although  I  was  doing  the  best  I  knew  how,  he  was 
thinking  so  far  beyond  the  logic  of  ordinary  mortals  who 
think  they  think.  " Don't  you  seel  Can't  you  get  it?"  he 
would  almost  wail  in  ardor  and  onrush  to  convince.  And 
we  would  metaphorically  roll  up  our  sleeves  and  go  at  it 
hammer  and  tongs.  To  me,  who  was  more  "kin"  to  him 
than  the  rest,  he  declined  to  "mute  his  trumpets.  His  own 
woman  must  speak  his  language.  And  then,  suddenly,  out 
would  slip  some  little  key-word  he  had  unwittingly  left 
unsaid,  the  door  would  fly  open,  and  I  would  seem  to  drop  a 
thousand  light-years  in  space,  alighting  softly,  happily,  yet 
excessively  puzzled  at  last  by  the  cosmic  simplicity  of  his 
reasoning. 

In  logic  he  bowed  to  no  one.  His  supple  mind  that 
never  stiffened  from  disuse  was  of  a  clarity  that  allowed  of 
no  master.  He  but  grasped  and  applied  the  conclusions  of 
Master-minds,  used  them  in  the  mosaic  of  his  own.  Yet 
here  is  a  curious  thing :  In  his  dreams,  at  widely  separated 
intervals,  appeared  the  Man  who  would  contest  Jack's  self- 
mastership,  to  whom  he  would  eventually  bend  a  vanquished 
intelligence.  He  never  met  such  an  one  in  the  flesh,  yet  that 
entity  stalked  through  more  than  the  hallucinations  of  sleep. 
It  was  long  ago  he  first  told  me  of  this  ominous  figure  in  his 
consciousness.  The  last  manifestation  was  within  a  very 
few  years  of  his  death.  The  man,  imperial,  inexorable  with 
destiny,  yet  strangely  human,  descended,  alone,  a  vast  cas 
cade  of  stairways,  and  Jack,  at  the  foot,  looked  up  and 
waited  as  imperially  for  the  meeting  that  was  to  be  his 
unknown  fate.  But  the  Nemesis  never,  in  that  form  at  least, 


344  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

overtook  him.  Was  it  Death  ?  Or  may  it  have  been  a  reflec 
tion  of  his  own  most  exalted  self  that  he  came  face  to  face 
with  at  these  times  1  There  showed  a  certain  pathos  in  his 
accounts.  I  do  not  think  he  had  yet  brought  his  inklings  of 
psychoanalysis  to  bear  upon  his  interpretations. 

What  gifts  Jack  had  for  all  who  could  see  and  hear! 
But  the  world  is  prone  to  look  askance  at  gifts  that  are 
tendered  freely,  without  price.  And  what  he  offered  was  so 
open-handed,  so  open-hearted.  He  never  wore  nor  waved  a 
flag — his  flags,  his  colors,  were  in  his  eyes,  streamed  from 
his  pen,  and  waved  from  his  printed  page.  Every  one  who 
tried  to  understand  him  was  better  for  it.  When  persons 
say,  "I  never  met  him,"  I  can  only  return,  "I  am  sorry. " 
If  it  was  a  privilege  to  know  his  work,  it  was  a  greater  privi 
lege  to  know  himself,  if  ever  so  slightly,  for  he  was  greater 
than  his  work.  He  had  few  enemies  among  those  who  came 
into  personal  contact  with  him.  With  all  his  self-knowledge, 
for  the  most  part  in  social  dealings  he  preserved  that  uncon 
sciousness  of  self  which  is  above  modesty,  yet  which  spells 
modesty  to  the  casual  observer.  And  no  matter  how  firmly 
he  believed  himself  right,  fought  for  it,  shouted  it,  he  also 
respected  a  similar  belief  existing  in  his  opponent.  This 
charity,  however,  had  been  sorely  taxed  during  earlier 
years,  by  dark  and  helpless  souls  incapable  alike  of  clear 
reasoning  or  appreciating  his  superiority ;  hence  his  impa 
tience  with  inconsequential  minds.  But  with  the  majority 
of  acquaintances,  no  frown  of  his,  no  stern  word,  ever  out 
weighed  the  morning  of  his  smile,  that  beautiful  smile  that 
lured  the  bitterest  antagonist  under  his  charm. 

Much  non-understanding  arose  from  the  misleading 
habit  of  others  in  quoting  his  isolated  opinions  without 
context,  deleting  them  of  the  vital  connotations  that  his 
catholicity  brought  to  ripe  consideration  of  any  theme. 
Only  a  few  of  his  fellows  could  anticipate  or  supply  the 
thousand  factors  embodied  in  his  thought.  Myself,  I  learned 
to  hesitate  before  leaping  to  conclusions,  to  wait  for  the 


THE  WAK;  HAWAII  345 

full  drift.  Just  about  the  time,  say,  that  Jack  would  begin 
to  sink  into  lowest  disheartenment  over  the  abysmal  sig 
nificance  of  the  War,  and  our  failure  to  bear  a  hand,  all  at 
once  he  would  flame  anew  to  the  undying  wonder  of  the 
human.  A  case  in  point  arose  when  Hall  Caine  wrote  him 
from  London,  asking  a  contribution  for  the  "King  Albert 
Book. ' '  Jack  responded : 

"Belgium  is  rare,  Belgium  is  unique.  Among  men  arises  on  rare 
occasions  a  great  man,  a  man  of  cosmic  import ;  among  nations  on 
rare  occasions  arises  a  great  nation,  a  nation  of  cosmic  import.  Such 
a  nation  is  Belgium.  Such  is  the  place  Belgium  attained  in  a  day 
by  one  mad,  magnificent,  heroic  leap  into  the  azure.  As  long  as 
the  world  rolls  and  men  live,  that  long  will  Belgium  be  re 
membered.  All  the  human  world  passes,  and  will  owe  Belgium  a 
debt  of  gratitude,  such  as  was  never  earned  by  any  nation  in  the 
History  of  Nations.  It  is  a  magnificent  debt,  a  proud  debt  that  all 
the  nations  of  men  will  sacredly  acknowledge. ' ' 

Yet  the  very  sending  of  the  foregoing  from  Oakland 
brought  him  face  to  face  again  with  human  smallness.  He 
thought  to  see  if  the  cable  company  would  share  in  the 
tribute  by  standing  half  the  expense  of  the  message.  They 
politely  declined,  and  Jack  shrugged  his  habitual  "  Cheap 
at  the  price  to  learn  them, ' '  under  such  circumstances. 

The  murder  of  Edith  Cavell, 

".  .  .  a  simple  English  nurse, 
Slaughtered  between  a  challenge  and  a  curse," 

snapped  something  in  Jack.  Eyes  and  soul  full  of  this  and 
the  rest  of  the  mad  slaughter,  he  became  more  and  more 
furious  with  the  brutal  stupidity  of  the  Hun.  He  lingered 
in  almost  speechless  wonder  over  the  monstrous  bestiality 
of  German  cartoons,  in  nearly  all  of  which  lay  a  boomerang 
unguessed  by  that  same  bungling  stupidity. 

He  did  not  believe  this  to  be  a  capitalistic  war,  but  that 
it  was  being  waged  for  a  principle  at  its  best,  and  must  be 


346  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

fought  to  the  death.  He  would  have  stamped  his  approval, 
I  know,  upon  the  ' '  irreduceable  minimum "  of  peace  terms, 
and  Mr.  Balfour's  deliverance:  "Next  to  being  enslaved  by 
Germany,  there  is  no  worse  thing  than  being  liberated 
by  her." 

Jack  would  refer  to  Germany  as  the  "Mad  Dog  of 
Europe. " 

"I  am  with  the  allies  life  and  death.  Germany  to-day 
is  a  paranoiac.  She  has  the  mad  person's  idea  of  her  own 
ego,  and  the  delusion  of  persecution — she  thinks  all  nations 
are  against  her.  She  possesses  also  the  religious  mania 
— she  thinks  God  is  on  her  side.  These  are  the  very  com 
monest  forms  of  insanity,  but  never  before  in  history  has  a 
whole  nation  gone  insane." 

"God  help  them  when  the  British  turn  savage!"  he 
cried  at  the  first  rumor  of  hostilities.  His  opinion  of  the 
country  has  been  very  adequately  expressed  by  one  who 
fought  in  France :  ' i  Germany  has  no  honor,  no  chivalry,  no 
mercy.  Germany  is  a  bad  sportsman.  Germans  fight  like 
wolves  in  a  pack,  and  without  initiative  or  resource  if 
compelled  to  fight  singly." 

A  hundred  times  I  have  heard  Jack  say:  "It  will  be  a 
war  of  attrition."  He  saw  no  abrupt  termination,  no 
brilliant,  decisive  victory.  But  for  the  Armistice,  he  might 
have  been  proven  right.  He  was  also  heard  to  say  that  he 
believed  the  nations  would  eventually  repudiate  their  war 
debts. 

The  Pathe  Exchange  wrote  on  June  16,  asking  his  views 
upon  the  meaning  of  the  World  War,  and  this  was  his  reply : 

•  "I  believe  the  World  War  so  far  as  concerns,  not  individuals 
but  the  entire  race  of  man,  is  good. 

'  *  The  World  War  has  compelled  man  to  return  from  the  cheap 
and  easy  lies  of  illusion  to  the  brass  tacks  and  iron  facts  of  reality. 
It  is  not  good  for  man  to  get  too  high  up  in  the  air  above  reality. 

* '  The  World  War  has  redeemed  from  the  fat  and  gross  material- 


THE  WAR;  HAWAII  347 

ism  of  generations  of  peace,  and  caught  mankind  up  in  a  blaze  of 
the  spirit. 

"The  World  War  has  been  a  pentecostal  cleansing  of  the  spirit 
of  man." 

Another  of  his  public  utterances: 

"I  believe  intensely  in  the  Pro-Ally  side  of  the  war.  I  believe 
that  the  foundation  of  civilization  rests  on  the  pledge,  the  agree 
ment,  and  the  contract.  I  believe  that  the  present  war  is  being 
fought  out  to  determine  whether  or  not  men  in  the  future  may 
continue  in  a  civilized  way  to  depend  upon  the  word,  the  pledge, 
the  agreement,  and  the  contract. 

"As  regards  a  few  million  terrible  deaths,  there  is  not  so 
much  of  the  terrible  about  such  a  quantity  of  deaths  as  there  is 
about  the  quantity  of  deaths  that  occur  in  peace  times  in  all 
countries  in  the  world,  and  that  has  occurred  in  war  times  in 
the  past. 

"Civilization  at  the  present  time  is  going  through  a  Pente 
costal  cleansing  that  can  result  only  in  good  for  mankind. " 

That  none  may  misconstrue  the  central  paragraph, 
but  may  know  upon  what  the  assertion  was  based,  I  append 
this  item  from  the  Scientific  American : 

"Industrial  accidents  cost  this  country  35,000  human  lives  and 
many  millions  of  dollars  annually,  according  to  the  Arizona  State 
Safety  News.  In  addition,  dismemberments  and  other  serious  in 
juries  total  about  350,000  yearly,  while  the  annual  number  of 
minor  accidents,  causing  loss  of  time,  exceeds  2,000,000." 

It  is  interesting,  while  on  the  War,  to  quote  his  disagree 
ment,  when  a  youth,  with  David  Starr  Jordan : 

" There  is  something  wrong  with  Dr.  Jordan's  war 
theory,  which  is  to  the  effect  that,  the  best  being  sent  out 
to  war,  only  the  second  best,  the  men  who  are  left,  remain 
to  breed  a  second-best  race,  and  that,  therefore,  the  human 
race  deteriorates  under  war.  If  this  be  so,  if  we  have  sent 
forth  the  best  we  bred  and  gone  on  breeding  from  the  men 
who  were  left,  and  since  we  have  done  this  for  ten  thousand 


348      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

milleniums  and  are  what  we  splendidly  are  to-day,  then 
what  unthinkably  splendid  and  god-like  beings  must  have 
been  our  forebears  those  ten  thousand  milleniums  ago. 
Unfortunately  for  Dr.  Jordan's  theory,  these  forebears  can 
not  live  up  to  this  fine  reputation. " 

His  full  emotions  toward  the  United  States  in  with 
holding  help  from 

".  .  .  the  embattled  hosts  that  kept 
Their  pact  with  freedom  while  we  slept!" 

are  expressed  in  a  telegram  sent  in  reply  to  a  New  York 
daily  asking  his  choice  at  election  time,  and  of  which  I  have 
no  record  that  the  paper  dared  print  it : 

"I  have  no  choice  for  President.  Wilson  has  not  enamored  me 
with  past  performances.  Hughes  has  not  enamored  me  with  the 
promise  of  future  performances.  There  is  nothing  to  hope  from 
ether  of  them,  except  that  they  will  brilliantly  guide  the  United 
States  down  her  fat,  helpless,  lonely,  unhonorable,  profit-seeking 
way  to  the  shambles  to  which  her  shameless  unpreparedness  is  lead 
ing  her.  The  day  is  all  too  near  when  any  first  power  or  any  two 
one-horse  powers  can  stick  her  up  and  bleed  her  bankrupt.  We 
stand  for  nothing  except  fat.  We  are  become  the  fat  man  of  the 
nations,  whom  no  nation  loves.  My  choice  for  President  is  Theo 
dore  Roosevelt,  whom  nobody  in  this  fat  land  will  vote  for  because 
he  exalts  honor  and  manhood  over  the  cowardice  and  peace  loving- 
ness  of  the  worshipers  of  fat. ' ' 

To  Henry  Meade  Bland,  a  month  before  his  death  Jack 
wrote : 

"I  am  inclosing  you  herewith  a  clipping  about  *  Martin  Eden.' 
'Martin  Eden,'  and  'The  Sea  Wolf  a  long  time  before  'Martin 
Eden/  were  protests  against  the  philosophy  of  Nietzsche,  insofar 
as  the  Nietzschean  philosophy  expounds  strength  and  individualism, 
even  to  the  extent  of  war  and  destruction,  against  cooperation, 
democracy,  and  socialism.  Here  is  the  world  war,  the  logical  out 
come  of  the  Nietzschean  philosophy. 

' '  Read  both  these  books  yourself  to  get  my  point  of  view.    Also 


THE  WAR;  HAWAII  349 

make  note  that  no  reviewer  ever  got  my  point  of  view  in  those  two 
books,  and  that  this  is  the  first  time  I  have  ever  shouted  my  point 
of  view  in  those  two  books." 

The  theory  of  alternate  eras  of  Evolution  and  Dissolu 
tion  fought  with  his  work  for  the  human.  Yet,  casting  back 
into  the  hopelessness  of  the  ages,  citing  fourteen  cities  built 
one  atop  another,  and  all  lapsed,  gone,  with  their  pomp  and 
circumstance — yet,  I  say,  Jack  suffered  unendurably  over 
the  Great  War,  and  perished  in  the  midst  of  his  deepest  of 
all  Great  Disgusts  because  of  America's  " Safety  First7' 
policy  that  held  us  from  protesting  even  the  Belgian  atro 
cities.  We  blunder  along.  The  times  blunder  along.  His 
tory-making  blunders  along.  And  he  saw  the  blundering 
way  of  the  race. 

His  main  comfort  throughout  that  Armageddon  was  his 
Anglo-Saxonism,  his  pride  in  England  in  the  conduct  of  her 
" popular"  war.  How  he  would  have  rejoiced  in  the  invin 
cible  combination  of  American  man-power  and  British  sea- 
power!  I  am  exasperated  all  the  time,  consciously  and 
unconsciously,  that  he  is  not  alive  and  quick,  to  function  in 
the  gigantic  tangle  of  world  events  growing  out  of  the 
war — to  see  his  own  prognostications  taking  shape,  and  to 
lend  a  hand  in  the  reconstruction.  Indeed,  it  is  hard  to 
write  calmly  of  this  creature  who  strove  so  manfully  for  the 
great  and  simple  integrities  of  human  intercourse,  looking 
as  he  did  far  through  and  beyond  the  small,  petty  thing  of 
the  moment.  Always,  while  responding  to  the  little  tragical 
affairs  of  men,  he  could  but  compare  these  with  the  big, 
cosmic  facts  and  dreams  that  lured  him  on.  This  verse,  by 
I  know  not  whom,  so  well  envisages  the  Jack  London  whom 
I  knew : 

' '  Your  stark  vision  and  cold  fire, 

Your  singing  truth,  your  vehement  desire 

To  cut  through  lies  to  life. 

These  move  behind  the  printed  echoes  here, 

The  paper  strife, 


350      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

The  scurry  of  small  pens  about  your  name, 
Measuring,  praising,  blaming  by  the  same 
Tight  rule  of  thumb  that  makes  their  own 
Inadequacy  known.' ' 

How  often  I  start  up  to  share  with  him  the  very  things 
he  so  missed  and  would  love  to  know  from  the  lips  of  fellow 
authors.  "He  was  an  honest  writer, "  says  an  Englishman. 
That  would  have  pleased  him  above  all  things.  And  an 
other:  "A  strong  and  virile  writer  of  clean  prose — robust, 
honest,  straightforward,  and  an  artist. "  Berton  Braley's 
i  t  He  never  struck  a  ribald  note, ' '  calls  to  mind  a  conversa 
tion  in  Honolulu.  Alexander  Hume  Ford  exclaimed: 

1  'But,  Jack,  you  have  never  written  anything  smutty 
— you  Ve  done  almost  everything  else ! ' '  He  had  meant  to 
be  facetious,  but  in  a  flash  Jack  was  all  gravity : 

"No! — and  I  never  shall.  I  have  never  yet  written 
a  line  for  print  that  I  would  be  ashamed  for  my  two  little 
girls  who  are  growing  up  to  see  and  read,  and  I  never 
shall  I" 

To  me  he  would  say :  l '  When  I  swear  my  worst,  I  really 
don 't  mean  it — only  words,  letting  off  steam.  But  when  you 
say  'Damn!'  you  are  positively  evil  in  your  ferocity! 
Wicked  woman ! ' ' 

Never  shall  I  forget  his  indignation,  too  vast  for  any 
expletives  at  his  command,  when  a  minister  of  the  Gospel 
wrote  him  that  his  novel  "The  Little  Lady  of  the  Big 
House"  was  unclean,  unfit  for  the  youth  of  America  to 
read.  "Show  me!"  he  raged,  "where  there  is  a  line  in  that 
book  'unfit'  for  any  young  man  or  woman  to  read!" 
Hard  upon  this  accusation  came  a  book-review  in  a  con 
servative  New  England  monthly,  employing  the  most  extra 
ordinary  nomenclature  to  interpret  the  alleged  pruriency  of 
the  book.  Jack  could  not  contain  his  ire,  but  started  a  battle 
royal  with  the  sons  of  Adam  who  had  in  his  opinion  so 
degenerated  as  not  to  know  clean  frankness  when  they  saw 


THE  WAE;  HAWAII  351 

it.  There  is  no  telling  where  the  controversy  might  have 
fetched  up,  had  he  lived.  "I've  given  over  sitting  back  and 
listening  to  gross  misinterpretation  of  my  clean  and  healthy 
motives,"  he  said  with  smoldering  eyes.  "It  is  like  mali 
cious  slander,  and  whenever  it  appears  I  am  going  after  it 
and  knock  off  its  ugly  head  in  the  open ! " 

How  does  the  foregoing  comport  with  this :  *  *  He  was  an 
uplift  to  the  young.  The  world  is  better  and  purer  for  his 
having  lived — an  inspiration  to  thousands  of  men  and 
women  to  work  and  keep  on  working,  to  create  and  keep  on 
creating,  to  live  the  full  life  wherever  they  are  or  whatever 
may  be  their  work." 

My  copy  of  "The  Little  Lady  of  the  Big  House,"  dated 
three  months  before  Jack  died,  carries  this  inscription : 

"The  years  pass.  You  and  I  pass.  But  yet  our  love  abides — 
more  firmly,  more  deeply,  more  surely,  for  we  have  built  our  love 
for  each  other,  not  upon  the  sand,  but  upon  the  rock. 

* '  Your  Lover-Husband. ' ' 

In  the  last  weeks  of  his  life,  that  was  often  the  bur 
den  of  his  talk  with  me — the  firm  foundation  of  the  house 
of  love  we  had  builded  in  the  decade  of  our  close  com 
panionship.  So,  in  my  memories  of  that  year  of  unusual 
vicissitudes  in  our  fortunes,  the  warm  and  deathless  love- 
message  in  his  hand  in  "The  Little  Lady  of  the  Big  House" 
is  a  rock  of  ages,  made  yet  more  immovable  by  the  declara 
tion  in  Jack 's  next  volume.  i '  The  Turtles  of  Tasman, ' '  the 
last  he  ever  was  to  hold  in  his  fingers : 

"After  it  all,  and  it  all,  and  it  all,  here  we  are,  all  in  all,  all  in 
all. 

' '  Sometimes  I  just  want  to  get  up  on  top  of  Sonoma  Mountain 
and  shout  to  the  world  about  you  and  me.  Arms  ever  around  and 
around, 

"Mate-Man." 
"The  Ranch, 
"Oct.  6,  1916." 


CHAPTER  XL 

THE   LAST   SUMMER 
1916 

UPON  returning  from  Hawaii  in  August,  Jack  went 
about  making  plans  to  get  away  to  New  York  three 
months  thence.  His  contract  with  Mr.  Hearst  was  due  to 
expire  at  the  end  of  another  year,  and  he  wished  to  be 
timely  in  reconnoitering  the  market.  His  requirements, 
looking  toward  ranch  expansion  and  rehabilitating  the  red 
ruins  of  the  Wolf  House,  were  not  diminishing.  From 
Honolulu  he  had  urged  his  sister  to  gather  the  materials ; 
but  she  has  ever  since  contended  that  something  more  than 
want  of  funds  held  her  back.  The  second  cutting  of  logs 
had  long  been  seasoning.  There  was  what  I  can  only  call  a 
telepathic  impulse  that  had  more  than  once  warned  her 
when  all  was  not  well  with  Jack — a  sudden  intuition  that  he 
was  ill  or  in  difficulties.  She  had  not  failed  in  this  present 
instance,  and  I  knew,  when  her  eyes  rested  upon  his  telltale 
face  at  the  dock,  that  some  premonition  had  been  verified. 
Jack's  secretary,  his  sister  Ida's  widower,  after  Jack's 
death  reported  that  Eliza  had  said  that  day : 

"Our  Jack  has  not  come  back  to  us." 

When  in  Honolulu,  he  had  first  broached  the  New  York 
trip,  my  unexpected  decision  to  remain  at  home  disquieted 
him  as  much  as  had  my  intention  to  go  alone  to  the  Islands 
on  the  occasion  of  his  projected  Fleet  trip  through  the 
Canal. 

"At  least,"  he  urged,  "don't  quite  make  up  your  mind 
that  you  are  not  going  with  me.  Give  it  more  thought. " 

352 


THE  LAST  SUMMER  353 

I  had  been  seized  with  determination  that  was  not  to  be 
resisted,  to  revise  old  Hawaiian  notes  into  the  companion 
book  of  my  "Log  of  the  Snark,"  and  knew  beyond  question 
that  there  could  never  be  time  nor  strength  to  give  to  it  un 
less  Jack  were  absent.  When  he  had  gone  to  a  farther  port, 
never  to  return,  a  railroad  ticket  for  New  York,  dated  for 
just  a  week  after  his  death,  lay  upon  the  roll-top  desk 
beside  his  work-table.  But  he  had  not  been  happy  about 
my  consistent  refusal  to  accompany  him. 

August  9  to  13  he  spent  at  Bohemian  Grove,  bringing 
home  George  Sterling  and  James  Hopper.  On  the  17th  he 
finished  a  short  story  begun  on  the  steamer,  *  *  The  Kanaka 
Surf,"  and  before  leaving  for  the  State  Fair  on  Septem 
ber  3,  had  completed  another,  "When  Alice  Told  Her 
Soul,"  both  included  in  "On  the  Makaloa  Mat." 

In  "When  Alice  Told  Her  Soul,"  underlying  its  rollick 
ing  humor,  Jack  evidences  that  his  feet  had  crossed  the 
threshold  of  psychoanalytical  understanding,  and  it  is 
fascinating  to  note,  in  Jung's  "Psychology  of  the  Uncon 
scious,"  marked  passages  showing  the  concepts  that 
quickened  Jack's  imagination  to  express  itself  in  that  tale. 
Knowing  what  I  already  knew  of  Jack's  last  days,  it  was 
wonderful  to  check  up  this  knowledge  by  the  aid  of  those 
markings.  It  was  my  privilege  to  have  the  guidance  of  a 
pupil  of  Jung's,  our  friend  Mary  Wilshire.  Here  is  an 
underlined  section: 

"The  possession  of  a  subjectively  important  secret  generally 
creates  a  disturbance." 

"It  may  be  said  that  the  whole  art  of  life  shrinks  to  the  one 
problem  of  how  the  libido  may  be  freed  in  the  most  harmless  way 
possible.  Therefore,  the  neurotic  derives  special  benefit  in  treat 
ment  when  he  can  at  last  rid  himself  of  its  various  secrets." 

Upon  this  Jack  based  his  picture  of  the  woman  strug 
gling  to  free  her  soul  from  a  life-long  accumulation  of 


354  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

secrets  which  led  her  to  the  confessional  of  a  mongrel  Billy 
Sunday  type  of  evangelist. 

In  the  last  story  ever  written  by  this  master  of  the  short 
story,  "The  Water  Baby,"  completed  on  October  2,  the 
theme  is  more  subtly  presented  through  the  medium  of 
Hawaiian  mythology.  Throughout  Dr.  Jung's  chapter  on 
"Symbolism  of  Mother  and  Rebirth,"  there  are  penciled 
indications  of  Jack's  grasp  of  the  meaning  of  folk-lore  and 
mythology  of  recorded  time.  Also  the  comprehension  of 
how  to  raise  lower  desires  to  higher  expressions.  He  has 
underscored  Jesus 's  challenge  to  Nicodemus,  cited  by  Jung : 

"Think  not  carnally  or  thou  art  carnal,  but  think  sym 
bolically  and  then  thou  art  spirit." 

"The  Water  Baby"  is  clearly  a  symbolic  representa 
tion  of  the  Rebirth,  the  return  to  the  Mother,  exemplified  by 
the  arguments  of  the  old  Hawaiian  Kohokumi.  A  similar 
chord  is  struck  in  the  following  paragraph  from  Jung's 
book,  indicated  by  Jack: 

"The  blessed  state  of  sleep  before  birth  and  after  birth 
is,  as  Joel  observed,  something  like  old  shadowy  memories 
of  that  unsuspecting  thoughtless  state  of  early  childhood, 
where  as  yet  no  opposition  disturbed  the  peaceful  flow  of 
dawning  life,  to  which  the  inner  longing  always  draws  us 
back  again  and  again,  and  from  which  the  active  life  must 
free  itself  anew  with  struggle  and  death,  so  that  it  may  not 
be  doomed  to  destruction.  Long  before  Joel,  an  Indian 
Chief,  had  said  the  same  thing  in  similar  words  to  one  of 
the  restless  wis-e  men :  *  Ah,  my  brother,  you  will  never  learn 
to  know  the  happiness  of  thinking  nothing  and  doing  noth 
ing;  this  is  next  to  sleep;  this  is  the  most  delightful  thing 
there  is.  Thus  we  were  before  birth ;  thus  we  shall  be  after 
death.'  " 

Even  in  "Like  Argus  of  the  Ancient  Times,"  written  in 
the  first  half  of  September,  is  exhibited,  in  the  "Freudian 
dream"  of  old  Tarwater,  as  he  faces  extinction  in  the  Arctic 
forest,  the  influence  of  Jack's  probings  into  the  stuff  of 


THE  LAST  SUMMER  355 

the  psyche.  And  to  the  lighter  reader,  I  call  attention  to 
the  fact  that  Jack  himself  walks  across  some  of  the  pages 
as  young  Liverpool. 

Jack's  emphasis  upon  the  primitive  elements  in  life  did 
not  emanate  from  the  fact  that  his  readers  especially 
wanted  it,  because  upon  this  point  he  was  in  conflict  from 
first  to  last,  tooth  and  nail,  with  editors  and  reviewers.  He 
was  thorough,  that  is  all.  It  can  easily  be  seen  how 
his  early  instinctive  use  of  the  methods  of  psychoanalysis 
abetted  this  thoroughness  in  seeking  for  the  noumenon  of 
things,  the  better  to  reveal  the  process  by  which  man  has 
become  what  he  is  to-day.  Look  in  "Before  Adam"  and 
"The  Star  Rover,"  again  to  find  evidence  of  his  knowing 
how  important  a  part  is  played  in  our  lives  by  old, 
primal  emotions,  long  thought  extinct.  To  him  the  work  of 
Freud  and  Jung  and  others  of  the  school  presented  a  psy 
chological-philosophical  key  to  the  "understanding  and 
practical  advancement  of  human  life"  which  leads  to  syn 
thetic  evaluation  of  human  endeavor.  It  was  inevitable 
that  his  brain,  which  was  both  analytic  and  synthetic,  should 
first  take  hold  of  the  analytic  half  of  psychological  under 
standing  and  quite  as  inevitably  pass  into  the  synthetic 
half  which  forms  the  whole  of  psychological  understanding. 
With  quick,  incisive  mind  he  apprehended  the  scope  of  the 
Freudian  method  in  contemplation  of  the  material  thus 
acquired,  and  then  with  Jung  moved  on  into  the  realm  of 
cosmic  urge  of  which  man's  psychic  energy  is  a  part. 

A  man  of  Jack  London's  fearless  quality,  who  prized 
truth  at  its  proper  worth,  could  but  accord  a  royal  welcome 
to  any  form  of  philosophy  which  offered  to  render  knowl 
edge  more  complete.  His  was  "the  character  and  intelli 
gence  which  makes  it  possible  for  him  to  submit  himself  to 
a  facing  of  his  naked  soul,  and  to  the  pain  and  suffering 
which  this  often  entails."  This,  from  Dr.  Beatrice  Hinkle's 
Introduction  to  Jung's  book,  Jack  had  heavily  underlined. 
To  face  his  naked  soul  he  dared  to  the  uttermost,  but  that 


356  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

was  not  new  with  him.  It  was  the  old  tragedy  that  began 
with  his  earliest  gropings.  Yet  see,  in  another  marked 
passage,  how  in  his  loneliness  he  realized  himself  as  brother 
to  all  other  human  beings : 

11  To  those  who  have  been  able  to  recognize  their  own 
weakness  and  have  suffered  in  the  privacy  of  their  own 
souls,  the  knowledge  that  these  things  have  not  set  them 
apart  from  others,  but  that  they  are  the  common  property 
of  all  and  that  no  one  can  point  the  finger  of  scorn  at  his 
fellow,  is  one  of  the  greatest  experiences  of  life  and  is 
productive  of  the  greatest  relief. " 

"My  one  great  weakness, "  Jack  once  wrote  to  Cloudes- 
ley  Johns,  "is  the  study  of  human  nature. "  And  when 
human  nature  through  its  repressions  baffled  discernment, 
he  suffered  inexpressibly.  He  had  us  bared  to  the  quick 
those  last  days.  After  a  set-to  with  his  sister,  on  ranch 
questions,  or  personal  ones  growing  out  of  controversy,  he 
cried,  trying  to  pierce  her  brain : 

"Pd  give  my  right  hand  to  know  what  you  are  really 
thinking  of  me ! ' ' 

And  to  me,  in  privacy,  after  I  had  been  almost  overreach 
ing  myself  in  self -illumination — once  or  twice,  alack,  goaded 
even  to  resentment — lie  would  grit  out,  intensely,  with  a 
gesture  of  despair: 

"You  tell  me  this  and  you  tell  me  that,  and  you  state 
your  reasons.  But  your  true  inner  impulsions  are  withheld 
in  spite  of  yourself.  Close  as  we  are,  you  and  I,  hard  as 
we  strive  to  give  ourselves  to  each  other,  the  old  reticences 
remain,  repressing  the  utmost  revelation.  You  do  your  best. 
It  is  not  enough.  Can 't  you  see,  oh,  my  dear,  can 't  you  let 
go  completely,  and  let  me  see  the  real  you  that  I  want  to 
fathom?  ...  I'd  give  my  soul  to  know  what  you  are 
actually  thinking ! ' ' 

But  when,  in  sudden  unasked  circumstances,  our  minds 
came  together  in  almost  superhuman  enlightenment,  the 
man  was  caught  up  into  a  supreme  and  wondrous  exalta- 


THE  LAST  SUMMER  357 

tion.    I  can  only  think  that  to  sustain  such  heights  one  must 
needs  seek  a  new  world  in  which  to  live ! 

Bead  this  section  of  Dr.  Hinkle's  Introduction,  which, 
noted  by  Jack,  throws  light  upon  the  struggle  extraordi 
nary  which  he  was  making  to  come  breast  to  breast  with 
us  in  mental  sympathy: 

"  There  is  frequently  expressed  among  people  the  idea 
of  how  fortunate  it  is  that  we  cannot  see  each  other 's 
thoughts,  and  how  disturbing  it  would  be  if  our  real  feelings 
could  be  read.  But  what  is  so  shameful  in  these  secrets  of 
the  soul?  They  are  in  reality  our  own  egotistic  desires,  all 
striving,  longing,  wishing  for  satisfaction,  for  happiness; 
those  desires  which  instinctively  crave  their  own  gratifica 
tion,  but  which  can  only  be  really  fulfilled  by  adapting  them 
to  the  real  world  and  to  the  social  group. ' ' 

"The  value  of  self-consciousness  lies  in  the  fact  that  man 
is  enabled  to  reflect  upon  himself  and  learn  to  understand 
the  true  origin  and  significance  of  his  actions  and  opinions, 
that  he  may  adequately  value  the  real  level  of  his  develop 
ment  and  avoid  being  self -deceived  and  therefore  inhibited 
from  finding  his  biological  adaptation.  He  need  no  longer 
be  unconscious  of  the  motives  underlying  his  actions  or  hide 
himself  behind  a  changed  exterior,  in  other  words,  be  merely 
a  series  of  reactions  to  stimuli,  as  the  mechanists  have  it, 
but  he  may  to  a  certain  extent  become  a  self-creating  and 
self-determining  being." 

I  shall  never  cease  to  remember  the  day  when,  all  a-tip- 
toe  with  discovery,  Jack  entered  the  dining  room,  slipped 
into  his  chair  and  repeated  the  foregoing  italicized  sentence. 
I,  knowing  his  theretofore  immovable  position  regarding 
free  will,  sat  aghast  at  the  implication  upon  his  tongue.  At 
length : 

"Do  you  realize  what  you  are  saying?  What  you  are 
implying  ?" 

"I  know  how  you  feel — how  surprised  you  are,"  he  an 
swered.  "But  it  almost  would  seem  that  I  can  grasp,  from 


358  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

this,  some  sort  of  inkling  of  free  will.    I'll  explain  further 
— we  will  read  together. ' ' 

Bear  with  me,  in  fairness  to  a  comprehension  of  the 
point  Jack  London,  as  an  individual,  a  member  of  society, 
and  an  artist,  had  reached  when  he  descended  "into  the 
dark,"  while  I  quote  a  few,  so  very  few  of  the  many,  marked 
sentences  from  Dr.  Hinkle  's  introduction : 

' '  He,  Jung,  saw  in  the  term  libido  a  concept  of  unknown  nature, 
comparable  with  Bergson's  elan  vital,  a  hypothetical  energy  of  life, 
which  occupies  itself  not  only  in  sexuality  but  in  various  physio 
logical  and  psychological  manifestations  such  as  growth,  develop 
ment,  hunger  and  all  the  human  activities  and  interests.  This 
cosmic  energy  or  urge  manifested  in  the  human  being  he  calls 
libido  and  compares  it  with  the  energy  of  physics.  Although  recog 
nizing,  in  common  with  Freud  as  well  as  with  many  others,  the 
primal  instinct  of  reproduction  as  the  basis  of  many  functions  and 
present-day  activities  of  mankind  no  longer  sexual  in  character, 
he  repudiates  the  idea  of  still  calling  them  sexual,  even  though 
their  development  was  a  growth  originally  out  of  the  sexual. 
Sexuality  and  its  various  manifestations  Jung  sees  as  most  im 
portant  channels  occupied  by  libido,  but  not  the  exclusive  ones 
through  which  libido  flows. 

"In  this  achievement  lies  the  hopeful  and  valuable  side  of  this 
method — the  development  of  the  synthesis. " 

" — an  absolute  truth  and  an  absolute  honesty.'* 

" — the  often  quite  unbearable  conflict  of  his  weaknesses  with 
his  feelings  of  idealism." 

"The  importance  of  this  instinct  (sexual)  upon  human  life  is 
clearly  revealed  by  the  great  place  given  to  it  under  the  name  of 
love  in  art,  literature,  poetry,  romance  and  all  beauty  from  the 
beginning  of  recorded  time." 

I  was  convinced  that  no  mortal  frame  could  out-last 
the  terrific  strain  Jack  was  putting  upon  his  own.  Some 
thing  had  to  break.  And  one  can  only  give  thanks  forever 
that  it  was  the  body.  That  was  the  lesser  sacrifice. 

At  this  late  date  there  rises  out  of  my  mind,  quite 
humbly,  the  question  as  to  whether  certain  independent 


THE  LAST  SUMMER  359 

manifestations  of  myself  to  which  he  had  been  unaccus 
tomed,  were  upsetting  Jack  more  than  he  cared  to  voice — as 
notably  my  insistence,  in  face  of  his  dissatisfaction,  upon 
remaining  at  home  alone  to  do  work  of  my  own.  I  have  come 
to  see  it  as  an  inevitable  self -liberation  after  an  association 
that  had  held  me  like  one  enchanted,  my  faculties  paralyzed 
in  every  function  except  as  toward  him  and  what  of  assist 
ance  I  could  be  to  him.  If,  as  may  have  been  the  truth,  my 
ego  was  unconsciously  making  effort  to  win  to  itself,  it  was 
probably  due  to  the  impetus  of  the  tuition  Jack's  superior 
ego  had  contributed.  I  am  only  trying  to  clear  up  phe 
nomena  that  it  now  seems  might  have  been  more  or  less  por 
tentous  to  him,  and  the  inner  meaning  of  which  he  was 
bending  every  nerve  to  discover. 

"For  the  first  time  in  my  life,"  he  remarked  one  day, 
"I  see  the  real  value  to  the  human  soul  of  the  confessional." 

The  effect  of  this  budding  impetus  in  me  did  not  ter 
minate  with  the  termination  of  his  dominating  personality. 
It  went  marching  on,  evident  in  the  most  amazing  ways. 
Instead  of  still  requiring,  in  order  to  go  on,  that  superb 
domination  under  which  I  had  so  loved  to  dwell,  suddenly 
I  stood  free,  an  ambitious,  sure  soul  for  the  first  time,  al 
most  unrecognizable  to  friends  and  self,  bent  upon  making 
the  best  of  that  self  and  its  remaining  span  upon  earth; 
this,  if  only  to  prove  its  appreciation  of  the  gifts  that  had 
been  bestowed  upon  it,  in  the  discharge  of  its  tender  obli 
gation  to  the  one  who  had  gone.  Life-long,  inherited  in 
somnia  fell  from  me,  and  nights  were  none  too  long  to 
compass  the  rejuvenation  that  was  mine,  and  that  prepared 
me  for  each  looking-forward  day  of  the  many  days  of  hard 
work  which  had  descended  upon  my  willing  shoulders.  No 
task,  in  contemplation,  discouraged — even  the  most  exact 
ing,  this  Biography. 

It  hardly  matters  that  I  am  ahead  of  my  story,  inasmuch 
as  the  events  immediately  preceding  and  succeeding  Jack's 
death  are  all  of  a  piece. 


360  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

Closely  following  his  passing  "into  the  Silence/'  on 
every  hand  speaking  evidence  of  his  thought  and  achieve 
ment,  even  lacking  the  maturer  masterpieces  we  shall  never 
know,  it  came  to  me  this  way : 

"It  seems  clear  that  there  was  no  limit  to  his  mind. 
Could  he  have  lived,  that  cerebration  would  have  gone  on 
and  on,  stretching  incredibly,  interminably,  no  bounds  to 
its  elasticity  in  every  direction.  It  was  enormous. " 

This  to  George  Sterling,  sad  beyond  despair  above  his 
friend's  "holy  ashes. "  And  he  repeated  after  me: 

' '  There  was  no  limit  to  his  mind.    It  was  enormous. ' ' 

Jack  was  so  tired  that  hot  evening  we  arrived  at  Sacra 
mento,  September  3,  that  he  went  to  bed  after  dinner  in 
stead  of  joining  Mrs.  Shepard  at  the  Fair.  We  were  hardly 
ready  to  "turn  in"  when  a  general  fire-alarm  called  us  to 
the  hotel  window,  and  in  the  direction  of  the  Fair  Grounds 
we  could  see  the  flames  rising. 

"It's  the  Exhibition  going  up,  all  right,"  Jack  said, 
peering  through  the  glare  for  the  towers  of  the  buildings. 

"But  aren't  you  going  to  dress  and  drive  out  to  see  if 
the  stock  is  safe — Neuadd  and  the  rest?"  I  asked,  surprised 
at  his  lack  of  excitement. 

"Oh,  no — Eliza's  there,  or  will  get  there,  and  she'll  do 
everything  that  can  be  done." 

And  surely  enough,  his  indomitable  superintendent,  al 
ready  bound  back  to  the  hotel,  had  turned  about  and  some 
how  bluffed  her  way  through  the  cordon  of  police  thrown 
about  the  place,  and  marshaled  our  stockmen  to  convey  her 
precious  charges  to  an  unthreatened  open  space. 

As  before  written,  she  and  Jack  had  disagreed  upon 
the  question  of  showing  animals,  at  least  thus  early  in  the 
establishment  of  his  reputation  as  a  stockbreeder.  But 
having  seen,  upon  his  return  from  the  Islands,  the  prime 
state  of  his  beasts  which  she  had  ready  for  the  journey,  he 
had  relented,  admitted  her  standpoint,  and  was  loyally  on 


THE  LAST  SUMMER  361 

hand  to  see  them  win.  That  they  did;  and  no  one,  even 
Eliza,  so  proud  as  he  with  his  handful  of  gold  medals  and 
blue  and  gold  ribbons  to  prove  that  the  Jack  London  Ranch 
was  "on  the  right  track." 

But  not  with  his  own  eyes  did  he  behold  our  proud  grand 
champions  carry  off  their  honors.  Only  the  one  day  after 
arrival  was  he  able  to  leave  the  hotel,  for  he  was  obliged 
to  keep  to  bed  for  eight  days  with  a  session  of  rheumatism 
in  his  left  ankle.  Fortunately  the  torture  was  intermittent, 
or  it  would  have  been  unbearable  without  a  hypodermic. 
As  it  was,  the  doctor  had  to  prescribe  powders  for  the 
worst  nights,  or  there  would  have  been  no  rest  for  either 
of  us.  I  went  out  of  the  house  but  three  times,  and  then 
to  buy  books  for  the  invalid,  who  seemed  not  to  want  me 
out  of  his  sight. 

In  the  longer  pauses  between  recurrences  of  grinding 
misery  that  drenched  the  poor  boy  with  sweat,  we  made 
genuinely  merry  over  games  of  pinochle  and  cribbage,  and 
read  aloud,  turn  about;  or  he  entertained  callers,  while  I 
gently  rubbed  the  ankle  by  the  hour.  Often  I  could  put 
the  sufferer  to  sleep  by  this  means.  Evenings,  from  the 
window,  Jack  enjoyed  following  the  starry  trail  of  Boquel's 
aeroplane  flights. 

For  once,  stung  alert  by  pain,  he  was  seriously  anxious 
about  the  future  as  regarded  bodily  comfort.  i  '  Although,  if 
I  became  permanently  crippled,  I'll  have  endless  time  in 
bed  to  do  all  the  reading  I  can  never  get  around  to,  and  be 
the  happiest  fellow  that  ever  came  down  the  pike,"  he 
grinned  with  native  paradox.  But  I  noticed  that  he  did 
not  hasten  that  glad  day  by  disobeying  the  physician,  who 
told  him  he  was  in  a  precarious  state  and  must  mend  his 
diet  and  work  off  some  of  his  excess  fat.  He  weighed  in  the 
neighborhood  of  one  hundred  and  ninety-four  pounds. 

So  all  toothsome  fleshpots  were  missing  from  the  tray, 
while  I  was  pressed  to  invent  salad  dressings  and  suggest 
the  most  tempting  vegetable  dishes. 


362  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

Upon  one  especially  precious  day,  when  we  two  were 
reviewing  our  long  run  of  years  together,  calling  up  memo 
ries  sacred  to  our  companionship,  I  asked  Jack  if  he  could 
remember  a  sweet  thing,  the  idea  of  which,  coming  from  him, 
had  astonished  me  one  day  in  Honolulu.  I  challenged : 

"I'll  wager  anything  you  say,  that  you  cannot  repeat  it 
just  as  you  said  it. ' ' 

4 'Which  sweet  thing?"  he  came  back;  " There  were 
many,  if  I  remember  aright.  I  '11  subscribe  to  it,  whatever  it 
was,  even  if  I  can't  remember  it !  Be  kind,  though,  and  give 
me  a  tip ! " 

When  I  had  done  so,  he  said  very  soberly: 

' '  Yes,  I  not  only  remember  and  subscribe  to  it,  but  I  can 
repeat  it  word  for  word.  I  told  you :  If  I  should  go  into  the 
dark,  and  wake  again — which  I  do  not  for  a  moment  expect 
to  do — but  if  I  should  open  my  eyes  again,  yours  would  be 

the  first  face  I  should  want  them  to  rest  upon ! And  I 

mean  it,  Mate  Woman.  I  surrender  to  you,  you  are  the 

only  one. Ask  me  for  something  that  I  can  do  for 

you!" 

I  have  no  personal  evidence  that  Jack  did  not  die  a  firm 
unbeliever  in  any  hereafter — materialist  monist  to  the  end. 
In  a  story,  "The  Eternity  of  Forms,"  included  in  "The 
Turtles  of  Tasman"  collection,  he  has  given  his  lifelong 
confession  of  faith,  "simple,  brief,  unanswerable": 

* '  I  assert,  with  Hobbes,  that  it  is  impossible  to  separate  thought 
from  matter  that  thinks.  I  assert,  with  Bacon,  that  all  human  un 
derstanding  arises  from  the  world  of  sensations.  I  assert,  with 
Locke,  that  all  human  ideas  are  due  to  the  functions  of  the  senses. 
I  assert,  with  Kant,  the  mechanical  origin  of  the  universe,  and  that 
creation  is  a  natural  and  historical  process.  I  assert,  with  Laplace, 
that  there  is  no  need  of  the  hypothesis  of  a  creator.  And,  finally, 
I  assert,  because  of  all  the  foregoing,  that  form  is  ephemeral. 
Form  passes.  Therefore  we  pass." 

Two  years  before  his  death,  he  had  more  briefly  stated 
his  old  position  in  a  letter  to  a  young  socialist  in  Chicago : 


THE  LAST  SUMMER  363 

"June  25, 1914. 
' '  Dear  Ralph  Kasper : 

".  .  .  I  have  always  inclined  toward  Haekel's  position.  In  fact, 
'incline'  is  too  weak  a  word.  I  am  a  hopeless  materialist.  I  see  a 
soul  as  nothing  else  than  the  sum  of  the  activities  of  the  organism 
plus  personal  habits,  memories,  experiences,  of  the  organism.  I 
believe  that  when  I  am  dead,  I  am  dead.  I  believe  that  with  my 
death  I  am  just  as  miwh  obliterated  as  the  last  mosquito  you  or  I 
smashed. 

"I  have  no  patience  with  fly-by-night  philosophers  such  as 
Bergson.  I  have  no  patience  with  the  metaphysical  philosophers. 
With  them,  always,  the  wish  is  parent  to  the  thought,  and  their 
wish  is  parent  to  their  profoundest  philosophical  conclusions.  I 
join  with  Haeckel  in  being  what,  in  lieu  of  any  other  phrase,  I 
am  compelled  to  call  'a  positive  scientific  thinker.'  '; 

Yet  it  was  the  same  Jack  London,  caressing  the  thought 
of  Death  at  the  close  of  "The  Human  Drift, "  who  wrote: 

*  *  There  is  nothing  terrible  about  it.  With  Richard  Hovey,  when 
he  faced  his  death,  we  can  say:  ' Behold!  I  have  lived!'  And  with 
another  and  greater  one,  we  can  lay  ourselves  down  with  a  will. 
The  one  drop  of  living,  the  one  taste  of  being,  has  been  good ;  and 
perhaps  our  greatest  achievement  will  be  that  we  dreamed  im 
mortality,  even  though  we  failed  to  realize  it. ' ' 

Jack's  sister  thinks  he  was  on  the  way,  those  last 
weeks,  to  modify  his  uncompromising  attitude.  At  least, 
she  considers,  judging  from  things  said  and  unsaid  in  their 
closer  moments,  that  he  was  shaken  in  his  certitudes  about  a 
number  of  subjects.  He  had  always  smiled  or  good-na 
turedly  scoffed  at  her  telepathic  "  hunches, "  as  he  termed 
them;  but  himself  underwent  a  puzzling  experience.  Mid 
most  of  his  forenoon  work,  all  at  once  he  obeyed  a  call  that 
his  mortal  ears  had  not  heard,  and  discovered  himself  stand 
ing  by  the  window  straining  his  eyes  toward  Eliza 's  cottage, 
on  a  slight  eminence  several  hundred  yards  away.  Every 
thing  looked  as  usual  in  the  serene  prospect,  and  he  came  to 
himself  with  a  laugh,  turned  to  watch  the  big  Shire  mares 


364      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

hauling  his  prided  manure-spreader,  and  returned  to  the 
interrupted  manuscript.  But  he  continued  uneasy.  Odd 
it  seems  to  me  that  Jack  did  not  tell  me  of  the  incident ;  for 
later  in  the  day  Eliza  reported  that  the  husband  of  her  new 
cook  had  arrived  unheralded  and  with  a  gun  threatened  her 
self,  who  had  been  totally  ignorant  of  her  cook's  marriage 
status,  for  keeping  his  wife  away  from  him. 

I  repeat  that  I  have  no  evidence  at  first  hand  that  there 
was  any  radical  change  in  Jack's  method  of  thinking.  He 
only  showed  an  intensification  of  his  old  instinct  for  the  * '  in 
exorable  logic  of  the  shadowland  of  the  unconscious."  What 
he  did  say  to  me,  and  more  than  once,  was  the  old:  "If  you 
should  ever  go  'soft,'  I'd  never  forgive  you!" 

It  was  not  until  after  the  Fair  had  closed  and  his  sister 
gone  home,  that  Jack  was  fit  to  make  the  journey  by  auto 
mobile.  About  sunset  we  had  a  breakdown,  and  I  remem 
ber  him  hobbling  about  a  little  village  while  the  repairing 
went  forward,  and  halting  to  watch  some  small  boys  spin 
ning  tops. 

"But  don't  you  do  this,  and  this?"  he  said,  all  interest 
in  the  new  generation,  taking  the  toy  from  an  urchin,  and 
trying  to  resurrect  his  own  cunning.  No,  they  couldn't  spin 
it  his  way — had  never  seen  it  done,  in  fact ;  nor  could  they, 
as  did  he,  make  it  spin  on  the  vertical  trunk  of  a  tree. 
Suddenly  one  of  the  lads  sprang  away  to  the  side  of  the  road 
and  glibly  named  the  make  of  an  approaching  car  while  the 
headlights  were  still  distant. 

"Well,  I'll  be "  Jack  left  it  becomingly  unsaid. 

'  '  How  did  you  know  what  was  the  name  of  that  machine  ? ' ' 

' i  Know  its  engines,  of  course — I  can  tell  most  of  'em  a 
long  way  off, ' '  the  boy  bragged,  nicely  even  with  his  inter 
locutor  for  superior  skill  in  the  top-game. 

'  *  See,  Mate, ' '  Jack  lit  a  cigarette  and  contemplated  the 
group,  "  I  'm  getting  old.  I  'm  out  of  touch  with  the  younger 
generation.  All  they  know  is  gasolene — but  I  will  say  they 
know  it  pretty  thoroughly!" 


THE  LAST  SUMMEB  365 

He  was  very  quiet  the  rest  of  the  ride,  and  I  recall  a 
curious  misapprehension  displayed  by  him  as  we  made 
ready  to  leave  the  town  of  Napa  in  a  moonlight  haze.  Though 
we  had  often  visited  here,  this  time  we  differed  as  to  an 
avenue  that  led  into  the  twenty-mile  road  to  Glen  Ellen. 
Jack's  sense  of  locality  was  usually  faultless,  mine  far 
from  being  so.  But  on  that  night  I  was  so  positive  that 
finally  he  relapsed  into  silence,  sending  forward  the  parting 
shot: 

' '  Very  well — have  your  way ;  but  you  '11  soon  find  you  are 
entirely  off  the  route." 

It  happened  otherwise;  but  I  made  no  comment  as  the 
dim  moonlit  leagues  were  left  behind.  And  then  I  became 
conscious  of  a  pressure  as  Jack's  hand  clasped  my  shoulder, 
and  over  it  came  the  love-husky,  golden  whisper  I  knew  of 
his  most  humble  and  generous  moments : 

'  '  I  love  you  to  death,  my  dear. ' ' 

A  return  hand-caress,  and  "I  know  you  do,"  closed  the 
incident,  and  no  reference  to  it  was  ever  necessary. 

To  the  tune  of  a  merry  household,  after  finishing  "Like 
Argus  of  the  Ancient  Times"  Jack  went  at  a  fantastic, 
whimsical  tramp  study  entitled  "The  Princess,"  last  of  the 
"On  the  Makaloa  Mat"  cluster.  The  denouement  is 
founded  upon  an  after-dinner  story  once  told  at  our  table 
by  a  Bohemian  clubman,  an  inimitable  raconteur.  Jack 
seemed  to  enjoy  making  this  tale,  and  could  hardly  wait 
each  day  to  catch  me  with  his  "Come  on  and  see  how  it 
goes!"  The  accomplished  ease  of  his  method  seemed  only 
to  increase;  too  much,  some  friends  and  critics  thought. 
Yet,  reading  over  his  last  stories,  with  their  sure  technique 
and  character-drawing,  profound  thinking  in  the  processes 
of  the  human  soul,  I  cannot  consider  that  he  had  fallen  off. 

How  gay  were  host  and  guest,  outside  of  what  might  be 
called  natural  sports  such  as  swimming,  and  swimming  the 
horses,  "hiking,"  boating,  riding,  and  the  like,  may  be 


366  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

judged  by  a  reckless  prank  that  broke  up  one  noonday  meal. 
I  do  not  remember  how  it  started,  nor  whose  was  the  sug 
gestion,  but  some  one  was  dared  to  swallow,  alive  and  whole, 
the  tiny  goldfish  that  swam  among  plants  in  a  low  cut- 
glass  bowl  on  the  long  table.  In  the  babble  among  the 
horrified  girls,  Jack  shouted: 

" We'll  play  a  hand  at  poker  for  it,  and  the  fellow  who 
loses  must  not  only  swallow  the  fish,  but  keep  it  down  for 
ten  minutes,  no  matter  what  is  said  to  him." 

Remonstrance  was  in  vain — the  trio,  Jack,  Finn  Frolich, 
and  Joe  Mather,  were  "on  their  way."  Joe,  slender,  fas 
tidious,  was  "  stuck, "  and  exhibited,  in  paying  the  forfeit, 
the  keenest  courage  I  ever  have  witnessed. 

"Gee,"  gasped  the  chesty  Frolich,  "I  couldn't  have  got 
it  down!" 

"I'd  have  died  if  I'd  had  to  do  it!"  Jack  said  in  awe 
struck  admiration  when  confronted  by  the  tragic  face  of 
the  man  who  had  "put  away"  the  scaly  morsel.  And  "I 
never  can  feel  quite  the  same  toward  you  again,"  Joe's 
young  wife  murmured  betwixt  laugh  and  sob. 

' '  That  was  an  awful  thing  to  allow, ' '  afterward  I  chided 
Jack. 

"It  was  a  wild  thing,"  he  giggled  concurrence,  "but 
think  of  the  fun!" 

"How  about  the  fish?" 

"Now  you're  saying  something,"  he  admitted.  "Just 
the  same,  it  was  quicker  ' curtains'  for  the  fish  than  your  fish 
in  the  garden  pool  get,  slowly  smothering  in  the  gullets  of 
the  water-snakes!  And  how  about  live  oysters,  now,  my 

dear  .  .  .  think,  think! Anyway,  I'd  rather  have  been 

the  fish  than  Joe ! "  he  grimaced  in  conclusion. 

When,  on  October  2,  "The  Water  Baby"  was  sent  off  to 
The  Cosmopolitan,  Jack  went  at  his  notes  for  a  new  novel, 
"Cherry,"  which  was  left  less  than  half  completed.  This 
romance  is  laid  in  Hawaii.  The  heroine,  Cherry,  is  a  Japan- 


THE  LAST  SUMMER  367 

ese  girl,  mysteriously  wrecked  in  the  Islands  when  a  baby, 
and  evidently,  by  the  trappings  and  the  dead  servitors  on 
the  abandoned  sampan,  infant  of  high  degree.  She  is 
adopted  and  given  every  cultural  advantage  by  a  wealthy 
white  couple  who  were  childless.  The  motif  of  the  work  is  a 
racial  one,  the  climax  depending  upon  Cherry's  choice  of  a 
husband  among  the  many,  of  various  nationalities,  who  sue 
for  the  hand  of  this  tantalizing  oriental  maid  whose  brain 
has  divined  her  situation  in  every  connotation.  There 
are  enough  notes  to  guide  a  reader  to  the  conclusion;  but 
up  to  the  end  of  the  year  1921,  I  have  not  matured  my 
plans  for  this  book  and  that  other  incomplete  manuscript, 
"The  Assassination  Bureau." 

Evenings  were  spent  in  cards,  or  games  like  "packing 
peanuts, ' '  in  which  Jack  nearly  died  of  mirth.  Or  he  would 
be  inclined  to  read  aloud,  poetry,  or  perhaps  his  own  stories. 
And  I  know  there  were  listeners,  captured  and  enchained  by 
his  charm,  in  whose  ears  still  rings  his  rich  and  solemn  voice 
in  the  stately  numbers  of  Ecclesiastes.  He  had  read  from 
this  favorite  several  times  to  certain  friends  in  Honolulu, 
and  now  recurred  to  it  with  increasing  appreciation.  At 
these  times  Jack  was  extremely  handsome,  with  something 
hard  to  describe — a  fine  nobility  in  expression  and  pose,  but 
something  also  of  the  unconscious  hauteur  of  isolation,  of 
the  aristocrat,  of  the  imperator. 

One  little  party  that  was  with  us  for  a  day  or  two  con 
sisted  of  my  uncle,  Harley  R.  Wiley,  of  the  University  of 
California  faculty,  who  had  brought  up  his  long  poem  "Dust 
and  Flame ' '  to  read  to  us ;  and  Blanche  Partington,  whose 
contribution,  in  this  instance,  beside  her  own  ever-welcome 
personaliy,  was  the  young  Irish  revolutionist's,  Kathleen 
O'Brennan,  whom  she  wanted  to  see  lock  horns  with  Jack 
London.  She  was  not  disappointed.  The  pair  went  into  the 
arena  in  fine  form,  while  the  rest  of  us  sat  panting  with  emo 
tions  that  ranged  from  serious  to  comic.  "Never  in  my 


368  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

life, ' '  Blanche  revives  the  occasion,  * '  did  I  hear  such  a  racial 
dressing-down  as  Jack  gave  Ireland !" 

More  often  than  he  went  himself,  Jack  sent  me  over 
the  trails  with  parties,  and  never  did  we  twain  go  on  any 
of  the  long  rides  once  so  reveled  in.  When  guests  were 
absent,  the  ranch  claimed  all  his  daylight  recreation  hours, 
and  he  forewent  the  Outlaw,  and  Sonoma  Maid,  and  Hilo, 
preferring  Prince,  the  "  Love-Horse "  of  our  fore-in-hand, 
on  whom  leisurely  he  explored  the  uplands,  testing  with 
eye  and  hand  for  soils  he  ached  to  "put  to  work/*  This 
was  not  sufficient  exercise  for  me,  and  I  rode  my  colts 
longer  distances,  usually  hunting  for  Jack  in  the  woods, 
when  we  would  descend  together.  Many  was  the  day  he 
said,  though  uncomplainingly : 

"I  got  in  a  lot  of  reading  last  night,  but  not  much 
sleep.  I  '11  nap  this  afternoon. ' ' 

But  it  was  seldom,  homing  alone  from  a  canter,  that  I 
failed  to  see  his  tumbled  handful  of  curls  bobbing  out  of 
the  door  to  meet  me. 

"You'll  never  know,"  he  said  again  and  again,  "how  I 
love  to  hear  your  horse  galloping  toward  me.  I  wouldn't 
miss  being  here  to  see  you  come  in  for  anything!" 

I  was  far  from  easy  about  him.  There  was  a  twilight 
stealing  over  our  lives — was  it  to  be  ever  this  way,  that  I 
rode  solitary  while  he  must  sleep  ?  Whither  were  we  trend 
ing? 

"Near  the  end,"  an  author  has  told  me,  "he  wrote  me 
about  my  book,  and  in  that  letter  he  complained  of  being  ill. 
Said  he  had  been  down  with  rheumatism  .  .  .  complained 
of  having  had  a  severe  time  of  it.  Complaint  of  any  kind 
from  him  seemed  unusual.  My  impression  was  that  he  was 
not  himself  when  he  wrote  this  way.  It  came  stealing  over 
me  that  his  work  was  nearly  done. ' ' 

Jack  had  expected  to  go  east  in  the  early  part  of  October, 
but  the  water-suit  intervened.  He  was  supposed  to  be  away, 
however,  and  I  am  always  grateful  to  fate  that  we  had  those 


JACK    LONDON    TWO    WEEKS    BEFORE    HIS    DEATH 


THE  LAST  SUMMER  369 

last  few  weeks  uninterrupted  save  by  a  few  loved  ones.  To 
one,  my  cousin  Beth,  he  gave  a  book  in  which  the  inscription 
verified  my  fear  in  that  he  was  going  too  fast,  his  mind  in 
creasing  upon  itself  with  an  insupportable  rapidity,  wave 
upon  wave,  factors  climbing  upon  the  backs  of  factors,  the 
thousand-thousand  connotations  that  might  have  suggested 
the  loom  of  madness  to  any  who  could  not  know  his  natural 
scope.  But  to  me  it  represented  an  enormous  sanity,  a  huge, 
normal  functioning,  only  a  madness  if  to  be  super-sane  is 
to  be  mad;  and  the  only  question  was,  how  long  could  a 
man  live  in  so  unchecked  a  mind-functioning,  while  neglect 
ing  his  body! 

" It  is  a  long  time,'*  he  complained  in  the  inscription  to 
Beth  above  referred  to,  " since  I've  seen  you  to  renew  ac 
quaintance  with  you.  When  you  were  here,  the  world  was 
here,  and  the  world  was  very  much  and  too  much  with 
me.  Darn  the  wheel  of  the  world!  Why  must  it  con 
tinually  turn  over!  Where  is  the  reverse  gear!" 

Evening  after  evening  he  read  aloud  from  Percy's 
"Reliques  of  Ancient  English  Poetry,"  and  reread  certain 
of  these  to  Beth  and  to  his  two  "saints,"  my  sister  Emma 
Growall,  and  my  uncle's  wife,  Villa  Wiley.  Two  large  vol 
umes  we  went  through,  and  the  third  and  last  to  Page  288. 
The  next  selection  is  "St.  George  for  England,"  and  Jack's 
book-mark,  the  ubiquitous  safety-match,  still  rests  between 
the  leaves.  Dryden's  "  Jealousie  Tyrant  of  the  Mind"  was 
an  especial  treasure  to  us.  I  shall  hear  until  I  die  Jack's 
voice  of  the  lover  in  "The  Nut-Browne  Mayd,"  which 
he  never  tired  of  repeating,  and  which  I  called  for  over 
and  over,  if  only  for  the  spell  of  the  "viols"  in  his 
throat,  and  to  see,  under  the  long  curl  of  lashes,  the  eyes  he 
raised  to  mine  at  the  verse-ends : 

"I  love  but  you  alone." 

He  fastened  upon  the  sweet  old-English  spelling  of 
Darling — "Dearling" — and  thenceforward  used  it  exclu 
sively  when  addressing  me,  his  voice  like  a  prayer. 


370  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

Interspersed  with  these  poems  we  also  read  the  Beau 
mont  and  Fletcher  Elizabethan  plays,  the  power  and  beauty 
of  some  of  these  affecting  Jack  profoundly. 

He  frequently  asked  me  to  play  or  sing  for  him,  and  was 
strangely  touched  by  a  song-relic  of  my  girlhood,  "Becom- 
pense, ' '  in  which  occur  the  lines : 

"And  at  the  last,  I  found  that  she 

Was  more  than  all  the  world  to  me." 

Handel's  " Largo,"  Wagner's  "Pilgrim's  Chorus,"  and 
the  trio  of  funeral  marches,  favorites  of  all  his  adult  life, 
were  resurrected  and  rendered  him  as  much  pleasure  as 
ever.  Whenever  he  went  to  Oakland,  he  put  in  an  hour 
or  so  in  some  music  store,  after  which  there  was  sure 
to  arrive  in  Glen  Ellen  a  box  of  phonograph  records, 
most  of  them  operatic.  Many  he  retained,  and  while  we 
had  supper  at  a  card-table  on  my  glass  porch,  it  was  the 
duty  of  Sekiiie  or  the  house-boy  to  run  off  a  succession  of 
disks  laid  out  by  Jack.  In  line  with  tracing  back  into  race- 
consciousness,  he  showed  increasing  preference  for  folk 
songs,  and  the  American  negro  melodies.  After  supper  he 
would  throw  himself  on  the  couch  by  my  side,  and  have 
these  reeled  off,  while  he  dreamed  beyond  all  following 
of  the  significance  of  these  human  cries  for  rest. 

"It's  always  been  that  way,"  he  would  reflect.  "Man 
kind  has  always  bowed  under  -jome  galling  yoke,  physical  or 
mental,  that  has  made  it  supplicate  for  rest,  to  escape 
'the  dreary  agitation  of  the  dust.'  Can't  you  hear  it, 
beating  down  the  ages — listen  to  that — play  it  over,  Sera, 
so  Mrs.  London  can  hear  it  again." 

Sometimes  he  was  very  calm,  and  evenings  were  of  our 
sweetest,  he  reading  aloud  or  talking,  I  embroidering  the 
beloved  "L"  upon  absurd  little  "guest-towels"  for  the 
Wolf  House  that  was  soon  to  be  rebuilt.  His  dislike  to  see 
me  sew  had  been  modified  these  many  years.  My  philoso- 


THE  LAST  SUMMER  371 

phy  upon  needlework  had  so  pleased  him  that  he  incorpo 
rated  it  in  "The  Little  Lady  of  the  Big  House. " 

Again,  over-intense,  on  hair-trigger  to  snap  up  any 
word  as  a  pretext  to  start  an  argument,  if  he  caught  me 
trying  to  placate  or  turn  him  into  smoother  channels  he  flew 
into  a  mental  fury,  at  times  hot,  at  others  deadly  cool. 
Sometimes,  as  before  noted,  I  let  him  wear  himself  out. 
And  when,  as  might  happen,  he  was  soon  over  the  mood, 
resting  in  my  embrace  he  would  tell  me  what  it  meant  to 
unburden  to  me  in  any  way  at  any  time. 

On  October  22,  precisely  a  month  before  Jack  went  out, 
Neuadd  Hillside,  the  "Great  Gentleman,'*  our  incompar 
able  Shire  Horse,  died  overnight  while  we  slept.  Rupture, 
they  pronounced  it,  and  veterinaries  were  summoned  from 
all  quarters. 

It  was  a  heavy  blow  to  Jack.  Aside  from  the  mone 
tary  loss  this  was  an  incalculable  set-back  in  his  far-seeing 
plans,  already  under  way,  for  breeding  and  in-breeding. 
I  learned  of  the  event  when  at  nine  of  the  morning  I  found 
Jack  still  in  bed,  lying  quite  idle.  I  had  not  time  to  ask  the 
reason  for  his  stricken  face  when  he  said,  reaching  out  to 
me: 

* ( Come  here  and  sit  beside  me.  I  have  bad  news  for  you 
— your  Great  Gentleman  is  gone." 

' '  What  ?    Who  f — what  do  you  mean  t ' ' 

"Good  old  Neuadd  died  last  night." 

.  .  .  And  a  little  later:  "I'm  not  ashamed,  Mate- 
Woman,  "  looking  at  me  like  a  lost  child  through  his  man's 
tears.  He  followed  me  around  much  that  day,  telling  more 
than  I  had  ever  dreamed  of  what  the  glorious  animal  had 
meant  to  him. 

"I  tell  you,  Mrs.  London,"  said  Hazen  Cowan,  our  cow 
boy,  who  had  had  the  care  of  the  stallion,  "I  hadn't  cried 
since  the  last  time  my  mother  spanked  me,  until  Neuadd  fell 
down.  He  wouldn't  lie  down  till  he  was  dead,  but  stood 
there  shaking  all  over."  Hazen  pulled  a  freckled  hand 


372      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

across  his  hazel,  black-lashed  eyes:    "I'd  really  slept  with 
him,  lived  with  him,  for  months,  you  know. " 

" Cherry''  was  laid  aside,  and  Jack  went  to  making  notes 
for  a  novel  upon  the  horse.  "You,  too,  make  me  some  mem 
ory-pictures  of  him,"  he  begged.  He  now  believed  that  he 
had  been  right  in  the  first  place  about  "show-condition"  for 
live  stock,  and  that  had  Neuadd  been  maintained  in  proper 
working-flesh,  he  would  have  been  saved  to  the  farm. 

He  did  not  begin  that  book.  After  making  a  sufficient 
sketch  to  fix  his  motif,  he  returned  to  what  was  already 
begun — how  vain  the  endeavor  we  were  not  then  to  know. 
But  the  death  of  the  "chief  of  the  herd"  weighed  more  than 
we  shall  ever  realize.  At  times  he  gave  way  to  a  listless- 
ness  I  had  never  before  seen  in  him. 

Next,  the  gentle  Prince  developed  what  eventually 
proved  an  incurable  rheumatism,  and  could  not  be  used. 
One  day  his  master  charged:  "If  anything  should  happen 
to  me,  and  Prince's  case  become  hopeless,  don't  ever  let  him 
go  off  the  ranch."  So  the  "Love-Horse"  came  to  sleep 
with  Neuadd,  Sonoma  Maid  and  Hilda,  in  a  wooded  ravine 
on  the  "Beauty  Ranch."  The  only  one  remaining  of  our 
joyous  coaching  team  is  the  indefatigable  Outlaw,  Gert,  who 
lives  and  moves  and  delivers  the  finest  of  colts  each  and 
every  renascent  springtime. 

When,  in  mid-October,  the  duck-hunting  season  opened, 
Jack  flung  caution  to  the  four  winds  and  with  gusto  con 
sumed  two  large  birds,  canvasback  or  mallard,  each  day.  An 
Oakland  market  kept  him  supplied.  Poisoned  as  he  already 
was  with  uremia,  this  richest  of  diets  was  nothing  less  than 
suicidal,  and  put  him  out  of  the  world  of  human  affairs 
in  less  than  six  weeks.  "Oh,  I  love  them  so,"  was  his  in 
corrigible  waive  of  my  remonstrance.  "I've  been  good  as 
gold  ever  since  Sacramento,  you've  seen;  and  now  it  won't 
hurt  me  to  fall  off  my  diet.  Don't  forget  I'm  naturally  a 
meat-eater!" 

The  last  guest  Jack  ever  entertained,  and  who  left 


THE  LAST  SUMMER  373 

three  days  before  lie  died,  was  a  frail  little  stranger  who 
came  to  ask  if  he  would  accept  a  joint  guardianship  of  her 
children.  "Sure!"  said  that  obliging  friend  of  the  needy. 
"Put  my  name  down  with  the  rest!"  She  had  studied 
medicine,  and  writing  to  me  later  inquired  if  Jack  was 
accustomed  to  the  amazing  menu  she  had  seen  him  consume 
twice  daily  while  she  was  with  us.  None  but  a  plowman 
could  have  survived  it. 

On  the  28th,  shaking  off  the  dejection  of  the  court  pro 
ceedings  in  the  water-suit  begun  two  days  previously,  Jack 
with  apparent  joy  read  a  letter  from  the  Newspaper  Enter 
prise  Association,  of  New  York  City,  and  appended  is  his 
reply  to  their  self-evident  query : 

*  *  Gentlemen : 

".  .  .  When  I  lie  on  the  placid  beach  of  Waikiki,  in  the 
Hawaiian  Islands,  as  I  did  last  year,  and  a  stranger  introduces 
himself  as  the  person  who  settled  the  estate  of  Captain  Keller; 
and  when  that  stranger  explains  that  Captain  Keller  came  to  his 
death  by  having  his  head  chopped  off  and  smoke-cured  by  the 
cannibal  head-hunters  of  the  Solomon  Islands  in  the  "West  South 
Pacific ;  and  when  I  remember  back  through  the  several  brief  years, 
to  when  Captain  Keller,  a  youth  of  twenty-two  and  master  of  the 
schooner  Eugenie,  wassailed  deep  with  me  on  many  a  night,  and 
played  poker  to  the  dawn,  and  took  hasheesh  with  me  for  the  en 
tertainment  of  the  wild  crew  of  Pennduffryn;  and  who,  when  I 
was  wrecked  on  the  outer  reef  of  Malu,  on  the  island  of  Malaita, 
with  fifteen  hundred  naked  bushmen  head-hunters  on  the  beach 
armed  with  horse-pistols,  Snider  rifles,  tomahawks,  spears,  war- 
clubs,  and  bows  and  arrows,  and  with  scores  of  war-canoes,  filled 
with  salt-water  head-hunters  and  man-eaters  holding  their  place 
on  the  fringe  of  the  breaking  surf  alongside  of  us,  only  four  whites 
of  us  including  my  wife  on  board — when  Captain  Keller  burst 
through  the  rain-squalls  to  windward,  in  a  whale-boat,  with  a  crew 
of  niggers,  himself  rushing  to  our  rescue,  bare-footed  and  bare 
legged,  clad  in  loin-cloth  and  sixpenny  undershirt,  a  brace  of  guns 
strapped  about  his  middle — I  say,  when  I  remember  all  this,  that 


374  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

adventure  and  romance  are  not  dead  as  I  lie  on  the  placid  beach 
of  Waikiki." 

Here  is  a  letter  to  his  London  agent,  Mr.  Hughes  Massie, 
dated  November  5 : 

"I  have  not  replied  by  cable  because  of  two  things. 

"  First,  I  expect  to  be  in  New  York  sometime  after  the  middle 
of  November.  I  should  then  be  able  to  talk  the  matter  of  such  an 
autobiography  of  50,000  words,  about  my  writing,  with  my  maga 
zine  publisher.  In  any  such  event,  I  would  personally  handle  the 
sale  of  the  American  first  serial  rights. 

"Second,  I  am  not  sure  about  what  the  contemplated  50,000 
words  would  be  concerned.  From  reading  your  letter  it  would 
seem  that  what  is  asked  is  how  I  obtained  at  first  hand  the  experi 
ences  that  are  at  the  back  of  my  writing.  I  do  not  see  how  I  could 
write  on  such  a  subject — at  least  no  more  than  several  thousand 
words.  My  idea  would  be  to  give  my  writing  experiences  from  my 
first  attempt  at  writing  right  on  down  the  line  to  the  present  date, 
I  mean  my  experiences  with  newspaper  editors,  magazine  editors, 
book  publishers,  etc.,  etc.,  entering  intimately  into  my  various 
books  and  short  stories  themselves,  I  mean  in  relation  to  the  sale 
of  them  to  the  purchasers. 

"If  you  could  write  me  a  letter  conveying  more  adequately  the 
subject  that  would  be  acceptable,  as  well  as  some  sort  of  suggestions 
about  the  rate  that  the  Wide  World  Magazine  would  pay  for  the 
first  serial  rights  in  Great  Britain,  I  would  be  better  equipped  to 
discuss  the  matter  with  my  people  when  I  get  to  New  York." 

"The  money  I  get  for  this,"  he  exulted,  "will  buy  more 
farm  machinery,  more  seed  to  plant,  and  the  rest!" 

On  the  afternoon  of  the  second  court-hearing  in  the 
riparian  rights  contest,  Jack  was  threatened  with  a  repe 
tition  of  the  severe  attack  he  had  suffered  in  Honolulu, 
and  drilled  me  again  in  the  use  of  the  hypodermic,  should 
the  pain  get  beyond  him.  He  was  very  wretched,  but  the 
calculus  passed  without  resort  to  the  needle. 

His  fourth  appearance  in  court  was  on  November  10. 
He  came  home  looking  ill,  and  complained  of  distressing 


THE  LAST  SUMMER  375 

symptoms  which  toward  evening  so  strongly  resembled  pto 
maine  poisoning  that  finally,  as  the  pain  increased,  I  got  him 
to  take  an  antidote,  which  produced  the  desired  effect. 
Very  gravely  I  talked  with  him,  and  he  owned  that  he  was 
shockingly  out  of  condition,  with  an  increasing  tendency  to 
dysentery.  "I've  never  been  quite  right  in  that  respect 
since  my  sickness  and  operation  in  Australia — and  Mexico 
didn't  help  matters  any.  — But  don't  worry,  don't  bother ; 
I'll  be  all  right,  my  dear!" 

And  still  he  made  no  alteration  in  his  diet  of  underdone 
wild  fowl. 

Philosophically,  and  helped  by  psychoanalysis,  Jack 
better  and  better  understood  and  sympathized  with  human 
frailty;  but  temperamentally,  due  largely  to  physical  and 
nervous  breakdown,  he  became  more  and  more  intolerant 
under  the  torment  of  his  uncovered  sensibilities.  Those 
last  days  were  not  the  first  wherein  he  had  gone  stark 
against  the  apparent  truism  that  any  one  who  accepts 
benefits  never  forgives  the  benefactor. 

As  I  sit  at  my  typewriter,  I  can  see  him,  back  to  me, 
elbows  on  desk,  head  in  both  hands,  and  hear  him  say,  not 
for  the  initial  time : 

"It's  a  pretty  picayune  world,  Mate — what  am  I  to 
think?  Are  they  all  alike!  Every  person  I've  done  any 
thing  for — and  I've  not  been  a  pincher,  have  I? — has  thrown 
me  down:  near  ones,  dear  ones — and  the  rest." 

"Some  of  us  are  still  standing  by,"  I  reminded  him 
soothingly. 

"Oh,  I  don't  mean  you,  of  course,  nor  Eliza.  But  the 
exceptions  are  so  rare — friend  and  stranger  alike.  Run 
over  the  list.  Take  that  socialist  woman  east — I've  for 
gotten  her  name — who  wrote  begging  me  to  stake  her  to  a 
small  sum  for  a  certain  number  of  months,  so  she  could 
devote  herself  to  writing  a  book.  It's  ages  since  she  ac 
knowledged  the  last  check  Eliza  sent,  and  she  has  never 
written  me  one  line  of  thanks,  nor  even  reported  progress. 


376      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

And  she's  but  a  sample  of  the  whole  hopeless,  helpless  mess ! 
And  take  cases  nearer  home.  The  hand  I  feed  smites.  It's 
only  the  ones  I  have  helped.  What  am  I  to  conclude  ?"  he 
finished,  swallowed  in  gloom,  suffering  damnably. 

"But  even  so,"  I  argued,  trying  to  offset  the  somber 
discord  induced  by  those  raw  sensibilities  that  made  him 
pierce  too  easily  through  even  the  unconscious  petty  shams 
of  civilization — ' '  even  so,  it  is  nothing  new  to  you ;  do  not 
forget  that  it  has  always  been  that  way.  Do  not  think  you 
are  the  only  one  who  suffers  from  this  lamentable  tendency 
of  the  human.  Your  kind  has  plenty  of  company  in  the 
world.  No  man  who  ever  made  money  and  played  Santa 
Glaus  to  many,  has  escaped  your  fate.  So  don't  isolate 
yourself  as  a  martyr.  Be  a  real  philosopher,  and  '  forget 
it.'  "  Then  in  a  vain  attempt  to  sting  him  out  of  his 
lethargy  to  a  normal  sense  of  values,  I  dared:  "Be  care 
ful,  or  you'll  find  yourself  nursing  a  persecution  mania!'! 

But  the  only  reaction  to  this  last  bolt  was  a  rather  spirit 
less  challenge  to  show  him  where  he  was  wrong  in  his  facts. 

Although  Judge  Edgar  Zook  urged  the  plaintiffs  to 
allow  him  to  apportion  the  water,  which  he  was  empowered 
to  do,  their  lawyer  declined  to  consider  this.  "We  stand 
or  fall, ' '  was  his  ultimatum.  On  November  14,  the  injunc 
tion  was  dissolved.  Jack,  desiring  in  neighborly  manner 
to  convince  the  plaintiffs  of  the  veracity  of  claims  upon 
which  his  testimony  had  been  based,  drove  around  inviting 
one  and  all  to  break  bread  with  us  at  noon  on  Friday  the 
17th,  and  accompany  him  on  a  little  tour  of  inspection. 
Nearly  all  accepted,  and  with  one  or  two  exceptions  it  was 
their  last  meeting  with  the  big  neighbor  whose  visions  for 
agricultural  welfare  were  for  the  most  part  incomprehen 
sible  to  them.  Jack  appeared  very  bright  during  the  meal, 
and  no  business  was  talked  until  its  conclusion.  But  when 
we  started  out  of  doors,  he  became  all  earnest  enthusiasm 
to  persuade  his  opponents  to  the  worth  of  his  moral  as  well 


THE  LAST  SUMMER  377 

as  legal  rights  in  the  matter  at  issue.     One  of  them  was 

heard  to  sigh : 

"We  should  never  have  gone  into  this  fight  with  you!" 
And  another :    "  What  a  pity  we  didn't  get  togelher  with 

you  in  the  first  place  and  thrash  out  this  matter  instead 

of  rushing  into  court  with  it ! ' ' 

Saturday  I  myself  went  to  bed.  I  cannot,  to  this  day, 
name  my  illness ;  but  looking  back  it  seems  that  I  was  on 
the  verge  of  a  nerve-collapse-  I  must  have  been  laboring 
under  too  great  anxiety.  The  Thursday  before1,  when 
Ernest  Hopkins  and  two  camera  men  had  been  photo 
graphing  Jack  both  for  ' '  movies ' '  and  * '  stills, ' '  I  had  sud 
denly,  in  one  or  two  of  the  poses,  noticed  something  in 
Jack's  face,  or  an  accession  of  something  more  than  dimly 
felt  of  late,  that  struck  fear  into  me.  It  might  be  described 
as  a  deadness — or  an  absence  of  life;  something  that  no 
face,  upon  an  upright  figure,  should  be.  Others  were  full 
of  vivacity,  with  all  that  Jack  could  command  of  charm  and 
aliveness — sitting  with  his  rifle,  laughing  from  the  high 
seat  of  the  water  cart,  or  driving  two  monster  Shire  mares 
in  the  manure-spreader.  How  eloquent,  like  a  message  of 
the  year's  increase,  that  oval  ring  of  fertilizer  lay  for 
weeks  upon  his  field  until  erased  by  the  winter  rains !  How 
eloquent  was  the  whole  fruitful  prospect,  when  he  lay,  in 
his  own  White  Silence,  in  the  midst  of  the  fair  land  of  his 
devising!  To  me,  then,  wandering  among  his  kindly  herds, 
in  the  effort  to  orient  myself  with  a  new  universe,  came  the 
thought  that  he,  our  Jack,  was  the  most  eloquent  dead  man 
in  all  the  world.  That  small,  potent  hand  had  written  a 
deathless  scroll  upon  the  hills,  and  he  seemed  to  live  and 
speak  and  move  at  one  with  the  growth  he  had  encouraged 
in  the  pregnant  dust  of  his  Sweet  Land.  One  could  not 
quit  and  lie  down  in  the  face  of  such  vital  challenge  to  make 
short  shrift  of  tears  and  rise  to  carry  his  banner  as  long  as 
fate  should  be  generous  enough  to  let  one  work. 


378      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

When  on  a  day  I  gallop  along  the  blossoming  ways  to 
Jack's  mountain  meadows,  missing  my  Strong  Traveler,  it 
takes  little  effort  still  to  hear  his  blithe,  companionable 
"Toot!  Toot!"  I  would  feel  no  startlement  did  he  emerge, 
reining  the  Outlaw  from  the  shadows  of  the  trees,  laughing 
from  under  the  cowboy  hat. 

He  had  been  radiant  in  his  hope  that  had  no  horizon.  "I 
want  to  live  a  hundred  years!"  was  his  lusty  slogan,  re 
peated  within  a  fortnight  of  his  death.  * '  See  the  dozens  of 
boxes  of  notes  filed  away?  Why,  writers  I  know  are  look 
ing  about  for  plots,  and  I've  enough  here  to  keep  me  busy 
with  twice  a  hundred  novels ! ' ' 

It  was  the  expression  of  just  such  exuberance  that  Jack 
felt  in  this  stanza  of  John  G.  Neihardt  's : 

Let  me  live  out  my  years  in  heat  of  blood ! 

Let  me  lie  drunken  with  the  dreamer 's  wine ! 
Let  me  Hot  see  this  soul-house  built  of  mud 

Go  toppling  to  the  dust — a  vacant  shrine ! 

When  he  was  gone,  I  smiled  with  appreciation  of  an 
enthusiastic,  but  uninformed,  reviewer  who,  despite  Jack's 
fifty-odd  books  written  within  seventeen  years,  credited  him 
with  more  than  double  that  number,  "to  say  nothing  of 
other  forms  of  literature." 

And  there  was  also  a  letter  that  pleased  me,  written  on 
November  20,  and  never  read  by  Jack : 

"I  have  just  seen  your  picture,  driving  two  huge  draft-horses  to 
a  manure-spreader.  This  is  the  picture  of  a  man  with  a  wagon- 
load  of  fertilizer.  He  is  going  to  spread  it  over  an  acre  of  ground 
and  make  it  fertile.  In  reality  the  man  has  an  inexhaustible  supply 
of  mental  pabulum  which  he  spreads  over  the  whole  world,  the 
dark  spots  are  made  lighter,  the  sloughs  of  despond  are  drained 
and  made  to  blossom  ...  the  weary  and  heavy  laden  are  lifted 
up.  ...  In  reality  you  are  subsoil-plowing  the  world,  preparing 
it  for  the  seeds  of  Universal  Brotherhood,  the  while  you  dream 
dreams. ' ' 


THE  LAST  SUMMER  379 

It  would  not  be  hard  to  imagine  him  a  happy  ghost  re 
visiting  his  beloved  lands  or  the  running  tides  of  San  Fran 
cisco  Bay,  irresistibly  drawn  back  to 

".  .  .  The  horses  in  the  wagons  with  their  kind  long  faces, 
And  little  boats  that  climb  upon  the  waves. " 

I  could  but  think,  viewing  the  excellence  he  left  be 
hind,  the  purity  of  his  purpose,  the  way  he  went  straight  to 
his  goal,  that  he  made  a  shining  exception  to  the  rule  that 

"The  evil  that  men  do  lives  after  them; 
The  good  is  oft  interred  with  their  bones. " 

I  was  sad  when,  on  Saturday  the  nineteenth,  our  tenth 
wedding  anniversary,  I  was  unable  to  join  Jack  and  a  quaint 
woman  guest  at  dinner.  Jack  brought  her  in  to  meet  me, 
and  later,  having  settled  her  somewhere  with  a  book,  re 
turned  to  stroke  my  throbbing  head.  I  remember  remind 
ing  him  of  the  fact  that  I  was  born  and  married  in  the 
same  month,  and  that  eight  days  hence,  the  twenty-seventh, 
would  be  my  birthday.  How  little  I  imagined  that  there 
would  intervene  the  date  of  my  widowhood !  Yet  doom  was 
in  the  air.  Subtly  I  felt  its  clutch,  and  this  was  all  my 
malady. 

Jack  wrote  with  unabated  industry  on  Monday  morning, 
and  in  the  afternoon  he  came  and  coaxed  me  in  a  cheery  and 
loving  way  to  pull  myself  together  and  accompany  him  up- 
mountain.  He  wanted  to  see  again  a  piece  of  land  that 
adjoined  the  ranch,  which  he  recalled  as  being  well  watered 
by  springs. 

"I  may  buy  it,"  he  said.  "I  could  develop  the  springs, 
and  that  would  mean  bigger  crops,  bigger  and  better  cattle 
and  horses,  life,  more  life,  Mate-Woman !  Oh,  it 's  big,  and 
I  have  so  many  plans  and  so  much  to  do !  Come  on  up  with 


me." 


It  hurt  to  refuse,  but  I  felt  too  weak  and  tired  to  face 
the  long  ride;  so  he  went  out  alone,  looking  unusually 
disappointed.  Yet  what  strength  was  mine  but  half  a  hun- 


380  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

dred  hours  later  to  meet  the  worst  and  not  fail — so  strange 
ly  are  we  constituted. 

Upon  his  return  he  came  breaking  through  the  house 
with  his  merriest  step  to  tell  me  every  detail  of  his  explora 
tion. 

"I  found  the  trail  without  any  trouble/'  he  told  me, 
"and  when  I  came  to  the  field  I  had  in  mind,  there  was  a 
young  farmer  plowing.  We  talked  quite  a  while,  and  I  got 
off  old  Fritz  to  handle  the  soil  myself.  I  found  it  of  very 
good  quality.  It  ran  through  my  fingers,  so  friable,  you 
know.  IVe  discovered  who  owns  it,  and  I'm  going  to  take 
up  the  matter  as  soon  as  I  can  land  the  prospect  of  some 
money  in  New  York.  Maybe  that  autobiographical  stuff 
will  pay  for  it. ' '  Then  further :  "  I  'm  planning  to  go  on  the 
twenty-ninth.  And  you're  still  not  coming  with  me?"  he 
finished  wistfully.  Then  he  resumed  the  tale  of  his  projects 
for  increasing  the  abundance  upon  his  acres. 

There  followed  a  wakeful  night  for  Jack,  and  he  rose 
very  late,  frankly  blue,  and  complaining  of  fatigue.  The 
dysentery  was  so  much  worse  that  I  protested  at  his  taking 
no  measures  to  check  an  alarming  condition.  He  worked 
but  a  short  time,  and  the  few  pages  of  manuscript  were  the 
last  he  ever  set  hand  to.  The  several  letters  he  dictated  to 
the  machine  were  transcribed  afterward  by  his  secretary. 
The  very  last  letter  he  ever  talked  into  the  horn  was  the 
following : 

1  'Editor  Every  Week, 
1 '  My  dear  sir : 

" Curses  on  you,  'Every  Week'!  You  keep  a  busy  man  busy 
over-time  trying  to  get  rid  of  you  while  unable  to  tear  himself  away. 
I  wish  the  man  who  writes  the  captions  for  your  photographs  had 
never  been  born.  I  just  can't  refrain  from  reading  every  word 
he  writes. 

11  And  the  rest  of  your  staff  bothers  me  the  same  way. 
"  Hereby  registering  my  complaint, 

"Sincerely  yours, 

"Jack  London. " 


THE  LAST  SUMMEE  381 

The  last  literary  notes  he  ever  penciled,  I  take  from  his 
bed-side  tablet: 

*  *  Socialist  autobiography. 

"  Martin  Eden  and  Sea  Wolf,  attacks  on  Nietzeschean 
philosophy,  which  even  the  socialists  missed  the  point  of." 

Another  page: 

"In  late  autumn  of  1916,  when  Adamson  Bill  (8 
hrs.  for  Kailroad  Brotherhoods)  rushed  at  the  last  tick  of 
the  sixtieth  second  of  the  twelfth  hour,  through  Congress 
and  Senate  and  signed  by  President  Wilson,  agreed  with 
my  forecast  of  favored  unions  in  Iron  Heel." 

"Novel. 

"Historical  novel  of  80,000  words — love — hate — primi- 
tiveness.  Discovery  of  America  by  the  Northmen — see  my 
book  on  same,  also  see  Maurice  Hewlett's  'Frey  and  his 
Wife/  Get  in  interpretation  of  the  genesis  of  their  myths, 
etc.,  from  their  own  unconsciousness. " 

He  did  not  go  out  all  day,  and  slept  in  the  afternoon, 
rousing  himself  with  an  effort.  Eliza  came  over  to  talk 
ranch  business,  and  they  were  still  at  it  when  the  first  and 
then  the  second  gong  sounded  for  our  supper.  Having 
shaken  off  the  half-stupor  in  which  he  had  awakened,  he 
had  become  very  excited  outlining  his  immediate  intention 
to  erect  on  the  ranch  a  general  store,  a  school,  and  a  post- 
office.  I  heard  him  wind  up : 

"There  are  enough  children  on  the  ranch  to  open  a 
school.  The  ranch  people  can  have  their  homes  here,  trade 
here  at  better  prices,  be  born  here,  grown  up  here,  get  their 
schooling  here,  and  if  they  die  they  can  be  buried  on  the 
Little  Hill,  where  the  two  Grcenlaw  children's  graves  are. 
.  .  .  No,  I  haven 't  in  mind  a  community  in  the  usual  sense 


382  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

of  a  reform  colony.  I  only  look  forward  to  making  the 
place  self-sustaining  for  every  soul  upon  it." 

Five  days  after  that  utterance,  Jack  London's  own  ashes 
were  laid  there  on  the  whispering  ridge. 

Eliza  told  me  later  that  in  those  days  she  worried  about 
the  over-working  of  Jack's  brain.  As  far  as  possible  she  met 
him,  yet  wondered  how  he  expected  her  to  put  into  prompt 
execution  the  enormous  tasks  he  prepared.  A  lesser  man,  in 
the  throes  of  the  toxemia  that  was  destroying  him,  would 
have  evinced  a  lesser  "mania."  Jack's  mental  vigor  was 
spent  logically  along  the  lines  of  his  ambition. 

^s 

Even  with  modern  familiarity  with  body  chemistry, 
scientists  are  not  able  to  determine  with  exactitude  the 
nature  of  the  toxins  that  produce  uremia.  "A  gastro 
intestinal  type  of  uremia,"  the  doctors  pronounced  Jack's 
disorder.  The  symptoms  had  been  present  for  a  long  time 
— stomachic  disturbances,  insomnia,  sporadic  melancholia, 
dysentery,  rheumatic  edema  in  ankles,  and  dull  headaches 
alternating  with  the  speeding  up  of  his  mental  enginery. 
Convulsions  were  absent,  and  the  only  coma  was  that  in 
which  he  breathed  his  last. 

When  Jack  at  length  parted  from  Eliza  that  night  of 
the  twenty-first,  he  brought  with  him  into  the  warm  and 
cozy  veranda  the  sweeping  current  of  his  fervor,  and  con 
tinued  talking  in  the  same  vein.  But  I  saw  that  he  was 
strung  to  a  breaking  pitch  of  excitement. 

"Your  duck  was  perfection  half  an  hour  ago,"  I  said, 
"but  I'm  afraid  it  is  far  from  that  by  now." 

But  he  was  not  interested  in  ducks,  and  spoke  much  more 
than  he  ate,  roving  into  a  future  heydey  of  the  ranch.  I 
distinctly  recall  one  part  of  his  conversation,  and  am  again 
made  glad  for  his  clean  soul: 

' '  There 's  a  big  slump  coming  in  real  estate,  country,  not 
city.  Recollect  that  man  who  came  the  other  day  to  interest 
me  in  some  of  the  land  among  the  little  hills  north  of  us? 


THE  LAST  SUMMER  383 

I  didn't  like  the  looks  of  his  speculation.  But  if  I  cared  to 
play  the  dirty  business  game,  I  could  buy  in  largely  when 
the  slump  comes,  cut  up  the  property  and  later  on  sell,  as 
that  man  expects  to  do,  to  poor  people  at  big  profit.  But  I 
ion 't  care  to  make  money  that  way,  Mate- Woman, ' '  he  broke 
off  earnestly.  "My  hands  are  pretty  clean,  aren't  they?" 

I  could  thankfully  respond  to  that.  His  business  was 
clean:  his  vocation,  the  making  of  books;  his  avocation, 
agriculture. 

He  did  not  ask  for  music,  nor  did  he  frolic  with  the  fox 
terrier,  Possum,  as  he  had  done  so  much  of  late,  testing  that 
keen  little  brain  and  great  heart  in  a  hundred  ways.  In 
half  an  hour,  Jack's  exuberance  had  worn  out;  and  with  an 
apprehension  to  which  I  had  been  no  stranger  of  late, 
I  saw  that  he  was  getting  argumentative,  as  if  looking  for 
trouble  lest  he  fall  into  melancholy.  He  picked  up  two 
wooden  box-trays  of  reading  matter  that  he  had  brought 
with  him,  and  lifted  them  to  the  table  on  which  stood  his 
almost  untasted  supper. 

"Look,"  he  said,  his  voice  low  and  lifeless,  "see  what 
I've  got  to  read  to-night." 

"But  you  don't  have  to  do  it,  mate,"  I  said,  trying  to 
stir  his  spirit.  "Always  remember  that  you  make  all  this 
work  and  overwork  for  yourself,  and  it  must  be  because  you 
choose  to  do  it  rather  than  to  rest.  My  ancient  argument, 
you  know ! '  * 

There  followed  a  colloquy  upon  relative  values,  and  then 
he  stood  up  abruptly,  came  around  the  small  table,  and  flung 
himself  on  the  couch  into  my  arms. 

"Mate-Woman,  Mate-Woman,  you're  all  I've  got,  the 
last  straw  for  me  to  cling  to,  my  last  bribe  for  living.  You 
know.  I  have  told  you  before.  You  must  understand.  If 
you  don't  understand,  I'm  lost.  You're  all  I've  got." 

"  I  do  understand, ' '  I  cried.  '  '  I  understand  that  there 's 
too  much  for  you  to  do,  and  that  you're  straining  too  hard 
to  get  it  done.  Are  you  so  bound  on  the  wheel  that  you 


384  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

cannot  ease  up  a  little,  both  working  and  thinking?  You 
are  going  too  fast.  You  are  too  aware.  And  you  are  ill. 
Something  will  snap  if  you  don't  pull  up.  You  are  tired, 
perilously  tired,  tired  almost  to  death.  What  shall  we  do? 
We  can't  go  on  this  way!" 

The  green  shade  was  well  down  over  his  face,  and  I 
could  not  see  his  eyes.  But  the  corners  of  his  mouth 
drooped  pathetically.  Poor  lad,  my  poor  boy — he  was,  in 
deed,  tired  to  death. 

We  lay  there  for  perhaps  an  hour,  he  resting,  sometimes 
sighing,  saying  little  except  by  an  exchange  of  sympathetic 
pressures  which  were  our  wont.  How  thankfully  I  remem 
ber  an  old  vow  that  never,  under  any  provocation,  would  I 
ignore  caress  of  his!  A  few  sentences  of  that  Hour  are 
too  sacred  and  too  personal  to  be  repeated,  and  yet  they 
were  the  frequent  expressions  of  our  daily  round — in  the 
last  analysis  they  were  an  expression  of  the  ever-narrow 
ing  values  of  life,  working  the  changes  upon  his  " bribe 
for  living." 

All  at  once,  turning  slightly,  he  put  his  arms  around  my 
neck. 

"Pm  so  worn  for  lack  of  sleep.  I'm  going  to  turn  in." 
Eising,  he  gave  voice  to  that  which  so  startled  me. 

" Thank  God,  you're  not  afraid  of  anything!" 

Never  shall  I  know  why  it  came  from  him  unless  it 
was  he  knew  the  unthinkable  was  upon  him,  that  I  would 
very  shortly  lose  his  dear  comradeship,  and  felt  that  I 
would  be  gallant  to  cope  with  that  disaster. 

When  in  the  days  to  follow  Jack's  holographic  will  was 
read,  first  in  the  family  circle,  next  by  Judge  T.  C.  Denny, 
in  court,  and  tacit  responsibilities  were  made  known,  I  could 
not  help  reverting  to  that  fervent  exclamation.  Or  was  it 
an  entreaty,  a  supplication?  If  a  prayer,  at  least  he  had 
answered  it  by  his  own  passive  action  in  neglecting,  during 
the  half-decade  the  Will  had  lain  in  deposit,  to  alter  a  line 
of  it.  In  effect  it  is  a  love  letter,  written  by  a  wise  man  who 


THE  LAST  SUMMER  385 

knew  our  metal,  and  he  named  Eliza  Shepard  and  my 
cousin  Willard  L.  Growall,  as  executors.  But  Jack  gave 
loophole  for  discontent  and  criticism  in  that,  beyond  trifling 
provision  for  various  beneficiaries,  he  stipulated: 

"  Whatever  additional  may  be  given  them  shall  be  a 
benefaction  and  a  kindness  from  Charmian  K.  London  and 
shall  arise  out  of  Charmian  K.  London's  goodness  and  de 
sire.  ' ' 

Having  not  forfeited  his  trust,  I  am  proud  to  append 
his  closing  paragraph : 

' '  The  reason  that  I  give  all  my  estate  to  Charmian  K.  London, 
with  exceptions  noted,  is  as  follows :  Charmian  K.  London,  by  her 
personal  fortune,  and,  far  more,  by  her  personal  aid  to  me  in  my 
literary  work,  and  still  vastly  far  more,  by  the  love,  and  comfort, 
and  joy,  and  happiness  she  has  given  me,  is  the  only  person  in  this 
world  who  has  any  claim  or  merit  earned  upon  my  estate.  This 
merit  and  claim  she  has  absolutely  earned,  and  I  hereby  earnestly, 
sincerely,  and  gratefully  accord  it." 

After  he  had  gone  to  his  room,  I  thought  to  cool  my 
distressed  head  by  a  stroll  in  the  blue  starlight.  The  burden 
of  my  thought  was  that  matters  could  not  go  on  in  this  way, 
that  I  must  make  an  effort  to  shake  Jack  into  recognizing 
that  he  would  have  to  change  his  physical  habits. 

When  I  reentered  the  house  at  about  nine,  it  was  on 
tiptoe.  Jack's  light  was  burning.  Peeping  across  from 
my  own  quarters,  I  saw  that  his  head  had  fallen  upon  his 
chest,  the  eyeshade  down.  As  I  looked,  he  made  a  slight 
movement,  as  if  settling  to  sleep;  and  knowing  his  sore 
need  of  repose,  I  did  not  venture  a  chance  of  disturbing 
his  first  slumber.  The  last  work  in  which  he  read  that 
night,  was  a  small,  rusty,  calf  volume,  "  Around  Cape  Horn, 
Maine  to  California  in  1852,  Ship  James  W.  Paige.  My 
self  half-exhausted  from  emotion  and  lack  of  rest,  I  went  to 
bed,  read  a  few  moments  in  "The  Wayside  Lute,"  by 
Lizette  Woodworth  Reese,  and  fell  asleep  for  the  first 
unbroken  eight  hours  I  had  known  in  weeks — thereby  shat- 


386  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

tering  any  latent  faith  I  may  ever  have  entertained  in  the 
sweet  code  of  telepathy  between  those  close  in  sympathy. 
As  if  to  me  a  prophesy,  one  of  the  poems  on  which  I 
went  to  sleep  was  this : 

"House,  how  still  you  are; 
Hearth,  how  cold ! 
He  was  vital  as  a  star, 
As  the  April  mold. 
Friend  and  singer,  lad  and  knight, 

Very  dear ; 

Hearts,  how  bare  the  dark,  the  light, 
Since  he  is  not  here!" 

But  the  last  lines  I  scanned,  and  which  keep  impinging 
now  upon  memory,  were  these : 

"  Loose  me  from  tears,  and  make  me  see  aright 
How  each  hath  back  what  once  he  stayed  to  weep ; 
Homer  his  sight,  David  his  little  lad ! ' ' 

When,  at  ten  minutes  past  eight  the  next  morning,  my 
eyes  opened  upon  Eliza  standing  by  my  bed,  with  Sekine, 
our  Japanese  boy,  in  the  background,  I  said,  "Yes,  what  is 
it?"  knowing  well  that  only  the  gravest  urgency  brought 
them  there.  And  just  as  quietly  Eliza  replied : 

" Sekine  could  not  wake  Jack,  so  came  right  to  me.  I 
think  you'd  better  come  in  and  see  what  you  can  do." 

The  stertorous  respiration  could  be  heard  before  we  en 
tered  the  sleeping-porch.  Jack,  unconscious,  was  doubled 
down  sidewise,  showing  plain  symptoms  of  poisoning.  By 
means  of  strong  coffee  we  had  succeeded  in  producing  some 
reaction  before  the  doctors  arrived  and  the  real  battle  for 
Jack's  life  began,  but  not  at  any  time  did  we  succeed  in 
coaxing  the  limp  form  to  any  effort.  The  physicians  first 
summoned  were  A.  M.  Thompson  and  W.  B.  Hayes  of 
Sonoma;  followed  by  J.  Wilson  Shiels  from  San  Francisco, 
and  Jack's  own  surgeon,  W.  S.  Porter.  It  was  only  by  hold 
ing  him  up,  one  on  a  side,  that  Jack  could  be  kept  in  a  sitting 


THE  LAST  SUMMER  387 

posture  on  the  edge  of  the  bed ;  and  when  ranchmen,  waiting 
all  day  at  call,  had  him  on  his  feet,  equilibrium  of  the  heavy 
and  nerveless  figure  was  maintained  only  by  sheer  strength 
of  his  supporters.  Body  and  will  could  not  cooperate,  and 
but  several  times,  in  the  middle  of  the  day,  was  there  a 
flicker  of  intelligence.  Every  legitimate  kind  of  shock  was 
resorted  to.  Physically  he  was  for  the  most  part  beyond  ef 
fort,  but  half-conscious  response  was  obtained  when  we 
shouted  alarming  tidings  across  the  abysm  of  coma : 

1 '  Man,  man,  wake  up !  The  dam  has  burst !  Wake,  man, 
wake !"  This  caused  a  shudder  in  the  congested,  discolored 
countenance,  the  head  jerked,  the  fixed  and  awful  eyes  made 
a  superhuman  effort  to  focus.  There  was  a  glimmer  of  con 
sciousness,  evanescent  as  the  dying  light  along  the  wires  in 
an  electric  bulb  that  has  been  snapped  off.  The  awareness 
faded,  faded.  But  oh,  the  pang  of  happiness  even  this  brief 
acknowledgment  lent  us  who  stood  by,  together  or  by  turn, 
in  the  struggle  of  those  midday  hours ! 

When  the  news  of  harm  to  his  dam  had  been  reiterated 
to  the  point  of  intolerable  agony  of  rousing  from  so  deadly 
lethargy,  we  were  rewarded  by  observing  that  he  protested, 
with  the  leaden  vigor  of  one  half-thralled  in  nightmare,  by 
slowly  beating  the  mattress  with  a  loosely-clenched  right 
fist.  The  left  was  never  raised.  Whereupon  shaking  and 
shouting  were  resumed,  with  a  like  outcome.  Although 
on  verge  of  tears  of  pure  joy  at  this  encouragement,  I 
could  but  note,  with  a  sickening  sense  of  futility,  that  body 
and  will  were  at  sharp  variance — the  closer  we  forced 
cognition  of  our  intent  to  resuscitate,  the  more  rational 
became  the  opposition.  He  was,  I  see  it,  setting  the  last 
fleeting  effort  of  his  life,  of  his  reasoned  will,  against 
rehabilitation  of  that  life  and  will. 

Then,  realizing  this  in  spirit,  I  desisted,  inwardly  at 
least,  to  fight,  to  hope.  One  thing,  however,  I  must  do: 
establish  one  last  mental  contact,  to  serve  me  all  the  de 
prived  years  that  should  befall. 


388      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

"Let  me  try  something/'  I  said,  and  they  set  him  up 
right  upon  the  edge  of  the  bed,  his  helpless  feet  upon  the 
fur  rug. 

Face  to  face,  seizing  him  firmly  by  the  shoulders,  I  shook 
him,  not  roughly,  but  decisively,  and  repeated : 

"Mate!  mate!  You  must  come  back!  Mate!  You've 
got  to  come  back!  To  me!  Mate!  Mdte!" 

He  came  back.  Of  course  he  came  back.  Slowly,  as 
something  rising  from  the  unfathomable  well  of  eternity, 
full  knowledge  brimmed  into  those  eyes  that  drew  to  mine  in 
a  conscious  regard,  and  the  mouth  smiled,  a  fleeting,  writhen 
smile.  It  seemed  as  if  my  unbodied  soul  went  out  to  meet 
his  in  that  instant.  Instant  it  was,  ineffable,  brief.  But 
it  contained  as  great,  as  glorious,  a  meeting  of  two  as  ever 
took  place  upon  this  planet.  Yet  it  was  not  enough.  Again 
I  sent  out  the  call  to  him  upon  the  brink — and  again  the 
smile.  Was  it  of  hail  and  faiewell  to  life  as  he  had  known 
it?  Or  of  love,  and  the  bliss  of  one  perfect  moment  of 
understanding?  Or  was  it  of  victory,  that  he,  by  lack  of 
resistance,  had  beaten  us  all  out,  and  thus  invited  ' '  the  ulti 
mate  nothingness,"  his  passing  behind  the  curtains  into 
"The  darkness  that  rounds  the  end  of  life"?  Perhaps 
there  was,  too,  upon  the  lips  that  smiled  awry  and  vainly 
strove  to  speak,  the  twist  of  contempt  for  the  dissolution 
that  was  upon  him.  What  would  we  not  give  to  know 
those  words  he  could  not  frame! 

What  I  love  to  believe,  when  all  else  is  said,  is  that  he, 
who  gave  life  and  death  an  equal  supremacy  in  his  affection, 
was  redeeming  a  promise  made  so  long  ago  that  it  is  woven 
into  the  fabric  of  all  memories  of  him. 

1 '  Death  is  sweet.  Death  is  rest.  Think  of  it ! — to  rest  for 
ever!  I  promise  you  that  whensoever  and  wheresoever 
Death  comes  to  meet  me,  I  shall  greet  Death  with  a  smile. ' ' 

How  the  great  ones  have  walked  arm-in-arm  with  Death ! 
Thus  Eobert  Louis  Stevenson  to  the  beloved  Assassin : 


THE  LAST  SUMMER  389 

"I  have  been  waiting  for  you  these  many  years.  Give 
me  your  hand,  and  welcome." 

Where  was  he,  our  Jack,  all  that  day  we  warred  with 
his  fate?  What  was  it  he  so  hated  to  forswear  in  order  to 
answer  our  importunity?  Judging  reasonably  enough  by 
the  dreams  of  his  latter  years,  I  hazarded  that  he  was  wan 
dering  purposefully  in  that  same  land  of  green  fields,  intent, 
watchful,  happy.  It  had  been  the  same  with  his  father 
during  a  longer  period  of  alternate  unconscious  periods — 
the  long  life-desire  fulfilled.  This,  oh,  surely,  is  what  we 
tortured  the  son  from! — But  with  the  last  breath  which 
left  his  body — what  of  the  bright  dream  f  When  the  splen 
did  head,  no  longer  instinct  with  resolution,  ceased  from 
its  cerebration,  hard  it  was  to  agree  with  that  same  cere 
bration  that  the  Thing  that  Thinks  is  one  with  the  Thing 
that  Dies !  How  I  should  love  to  believe  that  he,  liberated, 
opened  eyes  upon  the  range  of  illimitable  possibilities  that 
had  hitherto  been  bounded  by  failing  mortality.  Yet  who 
am  I  to  invoke  for  him,  who  declared  for  perfect  rest, 
otherwise  than  Ambrose  Bieree's  wish  to  a  friend: 

"  Light  lie  the  earth  upon  his  dear,  dead  heart, 

And  dreams  disturb  him  never. 
Be  deeper  peace  than  Paradise  his  part 
For  ever  and  for  ever." 

Or,  "the  supreme  beatitude  of  rest,"  as  Jack's  friend 
John  Myers  O'Hara  has  it. 

Months  after  Jack's  death  I  had  the  first  and  only 
"vision"  of  my  experience.  When  a  great  asking  comes 
upon  me,  in  ungifted  hours  when  my  lamp  burns  low,  I 
think  of  it.  Rising  one  morning  with  a  renewed  cheerful 
ness  that  bubbled  over  into  song,  suddenly,  as  clearly  as 
ever  I  had  looked  upon  the  man,  I  saw  Jack  stepping 
blithely  in  a  green  domain,  tlie  very  picture  of  an  Elysian 
pastoral,  whistling  comradely  to  an  unmistakable  friend 
shadowing  his  heel — Peggy  the  Beloved,  our  small  canine 


390  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

Irish  saint  of  the  Southern  Seas.  What  was  it — a  miscal 
culation  of  my  Unconscious  that  let  the  dear  dream  spill 
over  into  Foreconsciousness  to  rejoice  the  day? 

The  sun  went  down  upon  our  endeavor.  They  had 
brought  him  across  into  my  glass  porch,  scene  of  so  much 
quiet  happiness,  and  there  he  died  upon  the  couch  where,  a 
scant  twenty-four  hours  earlier,  he  had  cried  to  me :  "  You 
must  understand  my  need !  You're  all  I  Ve  got  left !" 

We  watched.  The  good  breathing  that  had  upborne  ex 
pectation  of  recovery  began  to  lag,  and  more  labored  became 
intake  and  suspiration.  I  became  aware  that  one  of  the 
Sonoma  physicians  was  leading  me  from  where  I  stood  at 
Jack's  head.  Mechanically  we  sat  down  in  my  room. 
Minutes  passed,  a  few,  an  eternity  of  them,  it  seemed. 
Longer  were  the  intervals  between  those  breaths  so  plainly 
heard,  a  very  great  interval,  another,  and  then  silence  abso 
lute,  the  sheerest  vacuum  of  sound  I  had  ever  known.  No 
one  moved  until  Sekine,  his  face  an  oriental  mask  of  ivory, 
stepped  in  and  bent  his  head  to  me. 

I,  who  had  never  before  lost  any  one  essentially  close ;  I, 
who  had  been  protected  from  all  outward  semblances  of 
death,  half  an  hour  later  went  out  with  my  own  dead  and 
sat  by  the  sheeted  form  until,  with  every  atom  of  under 
standing  I  possessed,  I  had  reckoned  for  all  time  with  the 
hitherto  unthinkable:  that  ultimate  silence  lay  upon  the 
lips  of  my  man.  Let  me  review  that  day  a  thousand- 
thousand  times,  there  is  nothing  new  to  face.  The  worst 
had  befallen;  the  future  was  plain,  a  horizonless  expanse 
of  ready  work  in  which  one  must  in  good  time  build  out 
of  the  wreck  a  renewed,  if  different,  joy  of  living  and 
serving.  It  was  good.  It  has  worked.  It  has  continued 
to  work,  test  incontrovertible.  I  proclaim  to  these  who 
mourn  overmuch,  the  worth  and  solace  of  my  remedy. 

When,  later  in  the  evening,  we  crept,  his  true  sister  and 
I,  into  Jack's  old  sleeping-place,  all  was  restored  to  order 
by  Sekine.  The  broad  bed  was  laid  and  turned,  the  pillows 


THE  LAST  SUMMER  391 

piled  ready  for  the  reader,  the  little  table  set  to  rights,  even 
to  cigarettes,  freshly-sharpened  pencils,  and  thermos  bottles 
of  water  and  milk.  It  was  incredible  that  the  one-time  tenant 
should  be  lying,  cold  and  insensible,  across  the  house.  We 
looked  at  each  other  dumbly,  and  I  sought  the  Japanese  lad. 

"We  always  do  it  in  our  country  for  those  who  have 
died,"  he  said  unsteadily.  "And  I  thought "  His  ex 
planation  trailed  into  silence  as  he  turned  away.  As  long 
as  he  remained  with  the  household,  the  bed  was  always  in 
order,  and  we  kept  a  single  flower  there  and  on  the  work- 
table. 

Once,  twice,  in  his  later  years,  Jack,  in  chance  reference 
to  the  possibility  of  his  dying  first,  departed  from  his 
familiar  careless  injunction  of  ' '  Oh,  if  I  should  go,  scatter 
my  ashes  to  the  winds,  or,  if  you  prefer,  upon  the  bay  or 
ocean ! ' '  Eliza  and  I  both  recalled  the  time,  when,  speaking 
of  his  love  and  hopes  for  the  ranch,  he  remarked : 

"If  I  should  beat  you  to  it,  I  wouldn't  mind  if  you  laid 
my  ashes  on  the  knoll  where  the  Greenlaw  children  are 
buried.  And  roll  over  me  a  red  boulder  from  the  ruins  of 
the  Big  House.  I  wouldn't  want  many  to  come.  You  might 
ask  George. " 

But  before  his  chosen  ceremonial  there  were  thrust  in 
occasions  which,  left  to  his  own  choice,  he  would  not  have 
stipulated.  Clothed  in  his  favorite  gray,  as  in  gray  I  had 
first  seen  him  sixteen  years  before,  for  a  day  in  his  work 
room  he  lay,  in  a  gray  casket  that  was  like  nothing  so  much 
as  a  cradle.  Passing  by  I  was  touched  by  the  smallness 
of  it.  I  had  thought  Jack  a  larger  man. 

The  neighbors  came  and  went,  in  tearful  awe  of  the  unex 
pected  demise  of  the  lovable  friend  they  yet  had  never 
understood.  Little  as  he  would  have  approved  of  exhibit 
ing  the  discarded  shell  of  him,  it  would  have  been  needless 
affront  to  the  tribute  these  people  were  accustomed  to  pay 
to  the  dead.  And  they  had  loved  him  more  than  they 
thought.  As  one  of  them  said: 


392  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

1 '  I  tell  you,  the  death  of  Jack  means  a  sorry  day  to  many. 
He  gave  away  a  meal  ticket  and  added  to  it  a  bit,  too.  His 
heart  went  out  to  the  fellow  who  carried  a  roll  of  blankets — 
or  no  blankets. " 

On  Friday,  at  dawn,  I  was  awakened  from  fitful  sleep  by 
the  rumble  of  the  death-wagon  coming  up  the  hill.  When, 
delaying,  I  slipped  in  to  the  abandoned  workroom,  the  open 
window  through  which  he  had  so  often  passed  alive  told  of 
the  manner  in  which  Jack  London  had  gone  from  his  house. 

Sekine  came  to  where  I  sat,  thinking,  adjusting,  and 
held  out  a  handful  of  keys,  the  dingy  Klondike  coin-sack  of 
chamois,  and  a  few  stray  notes,  all  taken  from  the  ranch  suit 
Jack  had  last  worn.  Sekine  murmured  something  about 
having  put  some  notes  in  the  breast-pocket  of  the  burial 
clothes,  together  with  a  pencil  and  pad — "  Just  as  he  always 
had  them,  Missis,"  he  whispered. 

"But,  Sekine,  the  notes,  what  notes!"  I  asked,  biting 
back  the  trembling  of  my  lips  at  thought  of  the  pitiful  last 
service  the  boy  had  rendered,  but  fearful  lest  some  latest 
words  of  Jack 's  had  gone  beyond  recall. 

"Something  1  wrote,  and  sent  with  him — no  one  will 
know,"  Sekine  explained.  "I  wrote,"  raising  his  head, 
1  Your  Speech  was  silver,  your  Silence  now  is  golden. '  That 
was  all.  It  was  my  Good-by." 

My  next  step  was  to  Jack's  work-table,  upon  which  lay 
the  unfinished  manuscript  of  "Cherry,"  just  as  he  had  laid 
down  his  pen.  There,  in  that  moment,  looking  at  what  was 
but  an  example  of  the  myriad  things  he  had  left,  in  a  flash 
it  came  to  me : 

"My  life  cannot  be  long  enough  to  mend  the  broken 
things — to  carry  on  the  tasks  that  are  left  for  me." 

Eliza  did  me  a  supreme  service  that  morning,  when  she 
accompanied  Jack's  casket  from  Glen  Ellen  to  the  Cre 
matory  in  Oakland.  One  who  met  the  little  cortege  in 
Oakland  was  Yoshimatsu  Nakata,  whom  Sekine  had  suc 
ceeded.  No,  I  was  not  ill,  as  the  report  went  out.  I  pre- 


THE  LAST  SUMMEE  393 

ferred  to  remain  away  from  a  funeral  which  represented 
Jack's  idea  so  little,  but  which  I  felt  should  be  accorded 
to  his  daughters  and  their  mother.  Several  friends,  in 
cluding  Frederick  Bamford  and  others  of  the  old  Euskin 
Club,  were  also  there,  and  two  or  three  persons  who  had 
corresponded  with  Jack  now  saw  him  for  the  first  time. 
A  short  address  was  delivered  by  the  Eev.  Edward  B. 
Payne,  who  was  familiar  with  Jack's  unorthodox  views ;  and 
a  poem,  which  had  been  asked  of  George  Sterling,  was  read 
above  his  friend. 

As  regards  the  manner  of  his  disposal,  Jack  himself, 
only  a  few  weeks  before,  had  had  this  to  say,  in  reply  to  a 
query  from  Dr.  Hugo  Erichson,  writing  for  the  Cremation 
Association  of  America,  the  same  having  been  submitted 
to  a  number  of  persons  of  national  prominence : 

4 'Glen  Ellen,  California,  October  16,  1916. 
'  *  Dear  Doctor  Erichson : — 

' '  In  reply  to  yours  of  recent  date,  undated 

"Cremation  is  the  only  decent,  right,  sensible  way  of  ridding 
the  world  of  us  when  the  world  has  ridden  itself  of  us.  Also,  it  is 
the  only  fair  way,  toward  our  children,  and  grandchildren,  and  all 
the  generations  to  come  after  us.  Why  should  we  clutter  the  land 
scape  and  sweet-growing  ground  with  our  moldy  memories?  Be 
sides,  we  have  the  testimony  of  all  history  that  all  such  sad  egotistic 
efforts  have  been  failures.  The  best  the  Pharaohs  could  do  with 
their  pyramids  was  to  preserve  a  few  shriveled  relics  of  themselves 
for  our  museums. ' ' 

I  have  little  connected  memory  of  Friday  and  Satur 
day.  I  know  there  was  work  to  do,  and  that  I  slept  long 
night  hours  under  the  ministering  hands  of  dear  women. 
And  I  walked  about  the  farm  precincts,  looking  rather 
curiously  at  the  young  life,  animal  and  vegetable,  which 
Jack  had  fostered  into  being.  Yet  he,  the  biggest  "mote  of 
life  between  the  darks ' '  had  vanished  in  a  day !  Wherever 
I  appeared,  I  was  conscious  of  some  workman  slipping 
away,  or  a  face  turned  aside  in  a  handkerchief.  The  half 


394  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

hundred  men,  many  of  whom  had  never  conversed  with 
their  employer,  seemed  unnerved  by  the  sudden  gap  in  their 
little  universe. 

Jack,  himself,  would  not  have  believed  the  warmth  there 
was  toward  him  in  the  skeptical  old  earth.  As  one  ex 
pressed  it: 

' '  To  me  it  seems  like  having  a  light  turned  off,  with  too 
few  already  burning,  leaving  the  road  darker  and  more 
dismal  and  difficult." 

It  was  almost  as  if  his  actual  death  purged  the  mankind 
who  knew  him  and  his  work,  of  jealousy,  hate,  and  carping 
criticism;  put  a  seal  upon  the  lips  of  the  meanest.  Even 
his  bitterest  detractors  tried  to  be  fair  and  charitable.  If  I 
needed  corroboration  of  my  own  belief  in  this  man  of  mine, 
I  could  recall  the  mourning  of  his  world.  It  must  have 
arisen  from  his  usefulness,  his  big  contribution  of  heart's 
blood  to  humanity.  Praise  of  him  from  all  quarters  and  in 
many  tongues  from  every  class  of  society,  literally  from 
rich  man,  poor  man,  beggar  man,  chief,  doctor,  lawyer,  and 
the  rest — aye,  thief,  and  worse !  Out  of  prisons  has  come  to 
me  a  wail  at  his  passing;  for  the  immaterial  sweetness  of 
Jack  and  his  code,  squareness,  his  long-suffering  charity, 
that  patriarchal  kindness,  had  passed  in  and  still  live  behind 
the  bars. 

To  him,  so  articulate  in  the  Great  Common  Things: 
"  Three  common  pitmen  in  Durham  will  keep  his  memory 
green  while  hearts  are  able  to  respond  to  the  bounteous 
thought  of  his  love,"  reads  a  letter  from  England.  "The 
sweetness  of  his  life  and  work  can  never  die." 

And  another,  no  less  than  his  trail-mate,  Hargrave, 
wrote : 

* l  Always  I  have  been  assaulted  by  doubts ;  and  then,  coincident 
with  the  message  that  Jack  had  passed  the  portal  that  bars  the 
Unknown  from  the  Known,  those  doubts  (independent  of  mental 
processes)  were  dispelled.  I  gave  no  reason  for  it — the  reasons  of 
men  are  such  vain  things  in  the  presence  of  the  Infinite. ' ' 


THE  LAST  SUMMEB  395 

This  from  one  more  " sour-dough ":  "I  loved  the  man 
because — because  he  was  a  man ;  By  the  Turtles  of  Tasman, 
He  was  a  man!" 

And  this  for  the  premanency  of  his  message : 

' l  He  touched  the  lowly  side  of  life  with  a  pen  horn  of  love  and 
bitter  experience.  ...  He  had  lived  with  down  and  outs,  and  with 
animals.  .  .  .  And  he  wrote  their  tragic  lives  as  no  human  ever 
wrote  them  before.  ...  So  long  as  there  are  human  hearts  that 
feel  the  tender  touch  of  love,  so  long  as  there  are  honest  souls  that 
revolt  at  cruelty  and  oppression,  so  long  will  Jack  London's  books 
and  stories  live  and  be  read." 

"If  Jack  London  had  had  faith,  what  a  great  preacher 
he  would  have  made!"  Dr.  H.  J.  Loken,  of  Berkeley,  ex 
claimed  to  his  congregation,  and  went  on  to  declare  that 
his  subject  was  of  a  deeply  religious  nature,  pointing  out 
that  his  criticisms  had  been  of  religion  as  found  in  the 
churches  and  not  against  Christianity  itself. 

One  thing  I  do  clearly  recollect  of  those  two  days  before 
Jack's  ashes  were  placed  upon  the  Little  Hill:  Eliza  and  I 
walked  there  alone  in  a  wintry  sunset.  Hazen,  who  had 
preceded  us  with  a  spade  to  mark  the  spot,  received  his 
instructions  about  the  red  boulder.  Six  horses  were  needed 
to  move  it  upon  the  steep  knoll. 

On  Sunday  morning,  November  26,  Ernest  Matthews, 
accompanied  by  George  Sterling,  brought  the  urn  from 
Oakland.  We  wreathed  it  with  ferns  and  with  yellow  prim 
roses  from  the  sweet  old  garden.  With  the  primroses,  as 
a  tribute  to  Jack's  adopted  home,  Hawaii,  I  wound  the 
withered  rust-colored  leis  of  ilima  once  given  Jack  in  Hono 
lulu  by  Frank  linger  and  Colonel  Sam  Parker,  now,  too, 
both  under  the  ground.  One  terrible  moment  was  mine 
when,  in  the  rain,  I  carried  the  small,  light  vessel  to  the 
wagon,  the  same  in  which  Jack  had  so  blithely  driven  his 
four.  The  urn  seemed  to  gather  weight  until  I  thought  I 
should  be  pressed  to  the  earth,  but  I  reached  the  hands  that 


396  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

placed  it  upon  the  hight  seat  before  it  had  become  insupport 
able  , 

Eliza  and  I,  together,  and  my  people,  followed  the  horses 
at  a  distance.  When  we  had  all  gathered  upon  the  dripping 
slope,  Mr.  G.  L.  Parslow,  our  oldest  ranchman,  received  the 
urn  from  Ernest  Matthews,  and  set  it,  with  its  flowers,  in  the 
tile  already  cemented  into  the  ground.  At  that  moment  a 
great  flood  of  sun-gold  spilled  upon  us  from  a  break  in  the 
leaden  sky. 

As  the  trowel  relentlessly  filled  the  space  within  the 
tile,  with  that  curious  transparency  of  mind  in  crises  in 
which  details  stand  out,  I  observed  with  satisfaction  that 
was  a  reflection  of  Jack's  effective  sense  of  proportion,  that 
exactly  the  right  proportion  of  mortar  had  been  mixed, 
not  a  trowelful  too  much  or  too  little. 

No  word  stirred  the  hush.  No  prayer,  for  Jack  London 
prayed  to  no  God  but  humanity.  The  men,  uncovered, 
reverent,  stood  about  among  the  trees,  and  when  their 
senior  had  risen,  the  stone  was  rolled  into  place. 

Before  we  turned  to  retrace  our  forlorn  steps  to  the 
house,  it  had  come  to  me,  once  and  forever,  that  this  unpre 
tentious  sepulture  beneath  the  tall  pine  was  but  a  self- 
chosen  memorial.  Death,  with  Jack,  had  not  seemed  like 
death.  Nature  had  slipped  the  moorings,  and  he,  "bold 
sailor  of  the  grey-green  sea,"  had  gone  out  with  the  tide, 
gallant,  victorious,  cruising  beyond  the  outer  reef,  into  the 
West,  to  a  paradise  of  green  lands  with  an  ocean  of  sails 
just  over  the  hill.  This  rugged  monument,  by  his  own  wish, 
could  never  be  a  place  for  mourning,  a  spot  to  sadden  his 
sweet  and  happy  mountainside.  And,  by  that  wish  and 
whatever  gods  may  be,  it  never  has  been.  Beautiful,  sing 
ing  with  birds,  vocal  with  winds  among  the  tree-tops,  Jack 's 
Little  Hill  appeals  only  to  contemplation  and  tender  melan 
choly.  There  is  nothing  better  than  that  the  pilgrim, 
standing  above  the  mellow  purple  boulder,  should  say : 

"By  the  Turtles  of  Tasman,  lie  was  a  man!" 


APPENDIX 
JACK  LONDON  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

SERIAL.  PUBLICATION 
1893 

Typhoon  off  the  Coast  of  Japan — SAN  FRANCISCO  CALL,  November 
12,  1893. 

1894 

An  Old  Soldier's  Story — EVENINGS  AT  HOME  (Oakland,  California), 

May. 
Old  Baldy — EVENINGS  AT  HOME,  September. 

1895 
'Frisco  Kid's  Stories — series  in  Oakland  High  School  AEGIS. 

1896 
A  Problem — AMATEUR  BOHEMIAN  (Oakland),  March. 

1899 

To  the  Man  on  Trail — OVERLAND  MONTHLY  (San  Francisco),  Jan 
uary. 

The  White  Silence — OVERLAND  MONTHLY  (San  Francisco),  Feb 
ruary. 

The  Son  of  the  Wolf — OVERLAND  MONTHLY  (San  Francisco),  April. 

He  Chortled  with  Glee  (triolet) — TOWN  TOPICS  (San  Francisco), 
April  20. 

If  I  Were  God  One  Hour  (poem) — TOWN  TOPICS  (San  Francisco), 
May  11. 

The  Men  of  Forty  Mile — OVERLAND  MONTHLY  (San  Francisco), 
May 

On  Furlough — ORANGE  JUDD  FARMER,  May  20. 

A  Thousand  Deaths — BLACK  CAT  MAGAZINE,  May. 

From  Dawson  to  the  Sea — BUFFALO  EXPRESS,  June  4. 

Through  the  Rapids  on  the  Way  to  Klondike— HOME  MAGAZINE, 
June. 

In  a  Far  Country — OVERLAND  MONTHLY,  June. 

397 


398  APPENDIX 

Unmasking  of  the  Cad  (tableau) — TILLOTSON  SYNDICATE,  July. 

What  Are  We  to  Say? — AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  EDUCATION,  July. 

Strange  Verbs — AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  EDUCATION,  July. 

The  Priestly  Prerogative — OVERLAND  MONTHLY,  July. 

The  Handsome  Cabin  Boy — THE  OWL,  July. 

The  Wife  of  a  King — OVERLAND  MONTHLY,  August. 

Eggs  Without  Salt  (Joke) — TOWN  TOPICS,  August  31. 

In  the  Time  of  Prince  Charley — CONKEY'S  MAGAZINE,  September. 

On  the  Writer's  Philosophy  of  Life — THE  EDITOR,  October. 

The  King  of  the  Mazy  May — YOUTH'S  COMPANION,  November. 

The  Rejuvenation  of  Major  Rathbone — CONKEY'S  MAGAZINE,  No 
vember. 

The  Wisdom  of  the  Trail — OVERLAND  MONTHLY,  December. 

A  Daughter  of  the  Aurora — CHRISTMAS  WAVE  ''San  Francisco), 
December. 

1900 

Economics  in  the  Klondike — REVIEW  OF  REVIEWS,  January. 

An  Odyssey  of  the  North — ATLANTIC  MONTHLY,  January. 

Pluck  and  Pertinacity — YOUTH'S  COMPANION,  January  4. 

The  Impossibility  of  War — OVERLAND  MONTHLY,  March. 

A  Lesson  in  Heraldry — NATIONAL  MAGAZINE,  March. 

When  He  Came  In  (triolet) — TOWN  TOPICS,  April  26. 

A  Reminiscence  of  Boston — BOSTON  TRANSCRIPT,  May  26. 

The  End  of  the  Chapter — s.  F.  NEWS  LETTER,  June. 

The  Husky — HARPER'S  WEEKLY,  June  30. 

Which  Make  Men  Remember  (Uri  Bram's  God) — s.  F.  SUNDAY 
EXAMINER,  June  24. 

Even  Unto  Death — s.  F.  EVENING  POST,  July  28. 

The  Dignity  of  Dollars — OVERLAND  MONTHLY,  July. 

Grit  of  Women — MCCLURE'S  MAGAZINE,  August. 

Jan,  the  Unrepentant — OUTING  MAGAZINE,  August. 

On  Expansion  (editorial) — THE  WAVE  (s.  F.),  August  11. 

The  Shrinkage  of  the  Planet — CHAUTAUQUAN  MAGAZINE,  September. 

Their  Alcove — WOMAN'S  HOME  COMPANION,  September. 

The  Man  with  the  Gash — MCCLURE'S  MAGAZINE,  September. 

Housekeeping  in  the  Klondike — HARPER'S  BAZAAR,  September  15. 

The  Phenomena  of  Literary  Evolution — THE  BOOKMAN,  October. 

" Girlie" — THE  SMART  SET,  October. 

Thanksgiving  on  Slav  Creek — HARPER'S  BAZAAR,  November  24. 

What  a  Community  Loses  by  the  Competitive  System — COSMOPOLI 
TAN  MAGAZINE,  November. 

Dutch  Courage — YOUTH'S  COMPANION,  November  29. 

The  Question  of  a  Name — THE  WRITER,  December. 

The  Material  Side  (First  Aid  to  Rising  Authors) — JUNIOR  MUNSEY 
MAGAZINE,  December. 

The  Great  Interrogation — AINSLIE'S  MAGAZINE,  December. 


APPENDIX  399 

Semper  Idem — BLACK  CAT  MAGAZINE,  December. 
Where  the  Trail  Forks — OUTING  MAGAZINE,  December. 
Bald  Face — THE  NEWS,  December. 

1901 

A  Relic  of  the  Pliocene — COLLIER'S  WEEKLY,  January  12. 

Sonnet — THE  DILETTANTE  (Oakland),  February. 

Lover's  Liturgy— THE  RAVEN  (Oakland),  February. 

The  Law  of  Life — MCCLURE'S  MAGAZINE,  March. 

The  Lost  Poacher — YOUTH'S  COMPANION,  March  14. 

At  the  Rainbow's  End — MCCLURE'S  SYNDICATE  (PITTSBURG  LEADER), 
March  24. 

Siwash — AINSLIE'S  MAGAZINE,  March. 

Editorial  Crimes — THE  DILETTANTE  (Oakland),  March. 

The  Scorn  of  Women — OVERLAND  MONTHLY,  May. 

Minions  of  Midas — PEARSON'S  MAGAZINE,  May. 

The  God  of  His  Fathers — MCCLURE'S  MAGAZINE,  May. 

Chris  Farrington:  Able  Seaman — YOUTH'S  COMPANION,  May  23. 

Oregon  Article- — s.  F.  EXAMINER,  June  13. 

Washoe  Article — s.  F.  EXAMINER,  Sunday,  June  16. 

Review  of  The  Octopus  (Norris) — IMPRESSIONS  (San  Francisco), 
June. 

A  Hyperborean  Brew — METROPOLITAN  MAGAZINE,  July. 

Girl  Fighting  Duel  (article) — s.  F.  EXAMINER,  July  21. 

The  Schuetzenfest  Articles — s.  F.  EXAMINER,  July  15  to  24. 

Daybreak — NATIONAL  MAGAZINE,  August. 

P'eter  de  Ville  (article) — s.  F.  EXAMINER,  October  14. 

Villanelle :  The  Worker  and  the  Tramp — THE  COMRADE,  October. 

Review  of  Lincoln  and  Other  Poems  (Markham) — s.  F.  EXAMINER, 
November  10. 

Ruhling-Jeffries  Fight — s.  F.  EXAMINER,  November  16. 

Review  of  Foma  Gordyieff  (Gorky) — IMPRESSIONNS  (s.  F.),  Novem 
ber. 

1902 

Interview  of  Governor  Taft — s.  F.  EXAMINER,  January  22. 

Keesh,  Son  of  Keesh — AINSLEE'S  MAGAZINE,  January. 

Interview  with  a  Millionaire  Socialist — s.  F.  EXAMINER,  April  18. 

The  Stampede  to  Thunder  Mountain — COLLIER'S  WEEKLY,  May  3. 

To  Build  a  Fire — YOUTH'S  COMPANION,  May  29. 

An  Adventure  in  the  Upper  Sea — N.  Y.  INDEPENDENT,  May  29. 

To  Repel  Boarders — ST.  NICHOLAS  MAGAZINE,  June. 

Batard  (Diable,  a  Dog) — COSMOPOLITAN  MAGAZINE,  June. 

Moon  Face — THE  ARGONAUT  (s.  F.),  July  21. 

The  Cruise  of  the  Dazzler — ST.  NICHOLAS  MAGAZINE,  July. 

The  Fuzziness  of  Hookla  Heen — YOUTH'S  COMPANION,  July  3. 

Nambok  the  Unveracious — AINSLIE'S  MAGAZINE,  August. 


400  APPENDIX 

Li  Wan  the  Fair — ATLANTIC  MONTHLY,  August. 

Wanted:  A  New  Law  of  Development — INTERNATIONAL  SOCIALIST 

REVIEW,  August. 

Rods  and  Gunnels — THE  BOOKMAN,  August. 
The  Salt  of  the  Earth — ANGLO-AMERICAN  MAGAZINE,  August. 
In  the  Forests  of  the  North — PEARSON  's  MAGAZINE,  September. 
Again  the  Literary  Aspirant — THE  CRITIC,  September. 
The  Master  of  Mystery — OUT  WEST  (Los  Angeles),  September. 
The  Story  of  Jees  Uck — THE  SMART  SET,  September. 
The  Sickness  of  Lone  Chief — OUT  WEST,  October. 
The  League  of  the  Old  Men — BRANDUR  MAGAZINE,  October. 
The  Hearst  Memorial  Building — s.  P.  EXAMINER,  November  19. 

1903 

In  Yeddo  Bay — ST.  NICHOLAS  MAGAZINE,  February. 
Getting  into  Print — THE  EDITOR,  March. 
How  I  Became  a  Socialist — THE  COMRADE,  March. 
The  One  Thousand  Dozen — NATIONAL  MAGAZINE,  March. 
Contradictory  Teachers :  Our  Benevolent  Feudalism,  Social  Unrest 

(A  Review) — INTERNATIONAL  SOCIALIST  REVIEW,  May. 
The  Terrible  and  Tragic  in  Fiction — THE  CRITIC,  June. 
Faith  of  Men — SUNSET  MAGAZINE,  June. 
The  Shadow  and  the  Flash — THE  BOOKMAN,  June. 
The  Call  of  the  Wild — SATURDAY  SVENING  POST,  June  20-July  18. 
People  of  the  Abyss---wiLsmRE 's  MAGAZINE,  March-January,  1904. 
Article  on  Boy  Criminal — s.  F.  EXAMINER,  June  21. 
These  Bones  Shall  Rise  Again — THE  READER,  June. 
Gold  Hunters  of  the  North — ATLANTIC  MONTHLY,  July. 
The  Leopard  Man's  Story — LESLIE'S  MAGAZINE,  August. 
Stranger  Than  Fiction — THE  CRITIC,  August. 
The  Marriage  of  Lit-Lit — LESLIE'S  MAGAZINE,  September. 
Local  Color — AINSLIE'S  MAGAZINE,  October. 
The  Class  Struggle — N.  Y.  INDEPENDENT,  November  5. 
Amateur  Night — THE  PILGRIM,  December. 
Too  Much  Gold — AINSLIE'S  MAGAZINE,  December. 

1904 

The  Golden  Poppy — THE  DELINEATOR,  January. 

The  Story  of  Keesh — HOLIDAY  MAGAZINE,  January. 

The  Scab — ATLANTIC  MONTHLY,  January. 

The  Sea  Wolf — CENTURY  MAGAZINE,  January-November. 

The  Tramp — WILSHIRE  MAGAZINE,  February-March. 

Russian- Japanese  War  Correspondence — HEARST  PAPERS,  February- 
June. 

On  the  Banks  of  the  Sacramento — YOUTH'S  COMPANION,  March  17. 

The  Yellow  Peril — s.  F.  EXAMINER,  September  25. 

Explanation  of  the  Great  Socialist  Vote  of  the  United  States — s.  F. 
EXAMINER,  November  10. 


APPENDIX  401 

1905 

White  and  Yellow — YOUTH'S  COMPANION,  February  16. 

The  King  of  the  Crooks — YOUTH'S  COMPANION,  March  2. 

A  Raid  on  the  Oyster  Pirates — YOUTH'S  COMPANION,  March  16. 

The    Siege    of   the    " Lancashire    Queen" — YOUTH'S    COMPANION, 

March  30. 

Charley's  Coup — YOUTH'S  COMPANION,  April  13. 
Demetrios  Contos — YOUTH'S  COMPANION,  April  27. 
The  Game — METROPOLITAN  MAGAZINE,  April-May. 
Yellow  Handkerchief — YOUTH'S  COMPANION,  May  11. 
The  Walking  Delegate  (Review) — s.  F.  EXAMINER,  May  28. 
The  White  Man's  Way — SUNDAY  MAGAZINE  SYNDICATE,  July. 
Britt-Nelson  Fight — s.  F.  EXAMINER,  September  10. 
The  Long  Day  (Review) — s.  F.  EXAMINER,  October. 
Love  of  Life — MCCLURE'S  MAGAZINE,  December. 
All  Gold  Canyon — CENTURY  MAGAZINE,  November. 
The  Sun  Dog  Trail — HARPER'S  MAGAZINE,  December. 
Holy  Jumpers  Article — BOSTON  AMERICAN,  December  19. 

1906 

What  Life  Means  to  Me — COSMOPOLITAN  MAGAZINE,  March. 

A  Nose  for  the  King — BLACK  CAT,  March. 

White  Fang — OUTING  MAGAZINE,  May-October. 

Earthquake  Article — COLLIER'S  WEEKLY,  May  5. 

Planchette — COSMOPOLITAN  MAGAZINE,  June- August. 

Brown  Wolf — EVERYBODY'S  MAGAZINE,  August. 

The  Unexpected — MCCLURE'S  MAGAZINE,  August. 

Review  of  THE  JUNGLE  (Sinclair) — N.  Y.  JOURNAL,  August  8. 

Review  of  THE  JUNGLE  (complete) — WILSHIRE'S  MAGAZINE,  August. 

My  Best  Short  Story — THE  GRAND  MAGAZINE  (London),  August. 

The  Apostate — WOMAN'S  HOME  COMPANION,  September. 

Before  Adam — EVERYBODY'S  MAGAZINE,  October,  '06  to  Feb.,  '07. 

Up  the  Slide — YOUTH'S  COMPANION,  October  25. 

A  Wicked  Woman — THE  SMART  SET,  November. 

Letter  to  H.  M.  Bland — STORY  CLUB  MAGAZINE,  November. 

Moyer-Haywood  Article — Chicago  DAILY  SOCIALIST,  November  4. 

First  Boat  Letter  (Snark  Voyage) — WOMAN'S  HOME  COMPANION, 

November. 

The  Somnambulists — N.  Y.  INDEPENDENT,  December  20. 
The  Wit  of  Porportuk — TIMES  MAGAZINE,  December. 
The  Cruise  of  the  Snark — COSMOPOLITAN  MAGAZINE,  December. 

1907 

When  God  Laughs — THE  SMART  SET,  January. 

My  Castle  in  Spain — THE  HOUSE  BEAUTIFUL,  January. 

Is  Jack  London  a  Plagiarist  ? — N.  Y.  INDEPENDENT,  February  14. 

Just  Meat — COSMOPOLITAN  MAGAZINE,  March. 


402  APPENDIX 

Created  He  Them — THE  PACIFIC  MONTHLY,  April. 

Finis  ("Morganson's  Finish") — SUCCESS  MAGAZINE,  May. 

Confession — COSMOPOLITAN  MAGAZINE,  May. 

A  Day's  Lodging — COLLIER'S  WEEKLY,  May  25. 

Holding  Her  Down — COSMOPOLITAN,  June. 

Pinched — COSMOPOLITAN  MAGAZINE,  July. 

The  Pen — COSMOPOLITAN  MAGAZINE,  August. 

Pictures — COSMOPOLITAN  MAGAZINE,  September. 

Chased  by  the  Trail — YOUTH  's  COMPANION,  Sept.  26. 

Two  Thousand  Stiffs — COSMOPOLITAN  MAGAZINE,  October. 

A  Royal  Sport  (Riding  the  South  Sea  Surf) — WOMAN'S  HOME  COM 
PANION,  October. 

The  Intercollegiate  Socialist  Society — POTENTIA  SYNDICATE,  October. 

Gay  Cats  and  Road  Kids — COSMOPOLITAN  MAGAZINE,  November. 

Hoboes  that  Pass  in  the  Night — COSMOPOLITAN  MAGAZINE,  De 
cember. 

1908 

Revolution — CONTEMPORARY  REVIEW  (New  York),  January. 
The  Passing  of  Marcus  O'Brien — THE  READER,  January. 
Trust — CENTURY  MAGAZINE,  January. 

The  Lepers  of  Molokai — WOMAN'S  HOME  COMPANION,  January. 
That  Spot — SUNSET  MAGAZINE,  February. 

Bulls — COSMOPOLITAN   MAGAZINE,   March. 

The  Inconceivable  and  Monstrous — HARPER'S  WEEKLY,  July  18. 

Adventure — HARPER'S  WEEKLY,  July  25. 

To  Build  a  Fire — CENTURY  MAGAZINE,  August. 

Finding  One's  Way  About — HARPER'S  WEEKLY,  August  1. 

The  First  Landfall — HARPER'S  WEEKLY,  August  8. 

The  Other  Animals — COLLIER'S  WEEKLY,  September  5. 

The  Nature  Man — WOMAN'S  HOME  COMPANION,  September. 

Flush  of  Gold — HAMPTON'S  BROADWAY  MAGAZINE,  October. 

The  Enemy  of  All  the  World — THE  RED  BOOK,  October. 

The  High  Seat  of  Abundance — WOMAN'S  HOME  COMPANION,  No 
vember. 

Martin  Eden — PACIFIC  MONTHLY,  Sept.,  1908,  to  Sept.,  1909. 

Lost  Face — N.  Y.  HERALD,  December  13. 

A  Curious  Fragment — TOWN  TOPICS,  December  10. 

Burns-Johnson  Fight — N.  Y.  HERALD  and  Syndicate,  and  Sydney, 
Australia,  STAR,  December  27. 

1909 

The  House  of  Mapuhi — MCCLURE'S  MAGAZINE,  January. 

The  Dream  of  Debs — INTERNATIONAL  SOCIALIST  REVIEW,  January- 
February. 

First  Impressions  of  Australia — THE  STAR,  Sydney,  Australia. 
(This  series  of  articles  published  January.) 

On  Strikes. 


APPENDIX  403 

The  Japanese  Question. 

Fortune  in  a  Newspaper. 

Sobraun  Article. 

The  Yankee  Myth. 

The  Seed  of  McCoy — CENTURY  MAGAZINE,  April. 

Beche  de  Mer  English  ("Too  Much  English") — WOMAN'S  HOMH 
COMPANION,  April. 

Make  Westing — SUNSET  MAGAZINE,  April. 

Aloha  Oe — THE  SMART  SET,  May. 

South  of  the  Slot — SATURDAY  EVENING  POST,  May  22. 

Good-by,  Jack ! — THE  RED  BOOK,  June. 

The  Chinago — HARPER'S  MONTHLY,  July. 

The  Sheriff  of  Kona — AMERICAN  MAGAZINE,  August. 

A  Piece  of  Steak — SATURDAY  EVENING  POST,  November  29. 

Letter  to  Arthur  Stringer  (Nature-Faking) — CANADA  WEST  MONTH 
LY,  November. 

Koolau  the  Leper — THE  PACIFIC  MONTHLY,  December. 

Mauki — HAMPTON'S  MAGAZINE,  December. 

The  Japanese  Question — SUNSET  MAGAZINE,  December. 

1910 

The  House  of  the  Sun — PACIFIC  MONTHLY,  January. 

The  Whale  Tooth — SUNSET  MAGAZINE,  January. 

A  Pacific  Traverse,  PACIFIC  MONTHLY,  February. 

Goliah,  THE  BOOKMAN,  February. 

Typee — PACIFIC  MONTHLY,  March. 

Chun  Ah  Chun — WOMAN'S  MAGAZINE,  March. 

The  Terrible  Solomons — HAMPTON  's  MAGAZINE,  March. 

The  Stone-Fishing  at  Bora  Bora — PACIFIC  MONTHLY,  April. 

An  Amateur  Navigator — PACIFIC  MONTHLY,  May. 

Cruising  in  the  Solomons — PACIFIC  MONTHLY,  June-July. 

Burning  Daylight — NEW  YORK  HERALD,  June  19-August  28. 

Jeffries-Johnson  Fight  articles — NEW  YORK  HERALD  and  Syndicate 
(Eleven  articles)  June  24  25,  26,  27,  28,  29,  30,  July  2,  3,  4 
(training  camp)  ;  5  (fight). 

The  Unparalleled  Invasion — MC  CLURE'S  MAGAZINE,  July. 

Letter  on  Young  Authors'  Endowment — N.  Y.  INDEPENDENT, 
July  28. 

The  Amateur  M.D. — PACIFIC  MONTHLY,  August. 

The  Heathen — EVERYBODY'S  MAGAZINE,  August. 

When  the  World  Was  Young — SATURDAY  EVENING  POST,  Sep 
tember  10. 

Winged  Blackmail — THE  LEVER  (Chicago),  September. 

Adventure  (Novel) — POPULAR  MAGAZINE,  Nov.  1-Jan.  15,  1911. 

The  Benefit  of  the  Doubt — SATURDAY  EVENING  POST,  November  12. 

Under  the  Deck  Awnings — SATURDAY  EVENING  POST,  November  19. 

The  Madness  of  John  Harned — EVERYBODY'S  MAGAZINE,  November 


404  APPENDIX 

The  Inevitable  White  Man — BLACK  CAT  MAGAZINE,  November. 
The  House  of  Pride — PACIFIC  MONTHLY,  December. 
To  Kill  a  Man — SATURDAY  EVENING  POST,  December  10. 
Yah !    Yah !    Yah ! — COLUMBIAN  MAGAZINE,  December. 
Bunches  of  Knuckles — NEW  YORK  HERALD,  December  18. 

1911 

The  Human  Drift — THE  FORUM,  January. 

The  Hobo  and  the  Fairy — SATURDAY  EVENING  POST,  February  11. 

The  Eternity  of  Forms — THE  RED  BOOK,  March. 

The  Strength  of  the  Strong — HAMPTON'S  MAGAZINE,  March. 

A  Son  of  the  Sun — SATURDAY  EVENING  POST,  May  27. 

War — London  NATION,  May. 

An  Alaskan  Vacation — PANAMA  MAGAZINE,  May. 

SMOKE  BELLEW:  The  Taste  of  the  Meat — COSMOPOLITAN  MAGAZINE, 

June. 

The  First  Poet  (play) — CENTURY  MAGAZINE,  June. 
The  Proud  Goat  of  Aloysius  Pankburn — SATURDAY  EVENING  POST, 

June  24. 

The  Goat  Man  of  Fautino — SATURDAY  EVENING  POST,  July  29. 
The  Night  Born — EVERYBODY'S  MAGAZINE,  July. 
SMOKE  BELLEW:  The  Meat — COSMOPOLITAN  MAGAZINE,  July. 
The  Mexican — SATURDAY  EVENING  POST,  August  19. 
SMOKE  BELLEW:   The   Stampede  to   Squaw   Creek — COSMOPOLITAN 

MAGAZINE,  August. 

Navigating  Four  Horses  North  of  the  Bay — SUNSET  MAGAZINE, 
September. 

The  Abysmal  Brute — POPULAR  MAGAZINE,  September  1. 

SMOKE  BELLEW:  Shorty  Dreams — COSMOPOLITAN  MAGAZINE,  Sep 
tember. 

A  Little  Account  with  Swithin  Hall — SATURDAY  EVENING  POST, 
September  2. 

A  Gobotu  Night — SATURDAY  EVENING  POST,  September  30. 

SMOKE  BELLEW  :  The  Man  on  the  Other  Bank — COSMOPOLITAN 
MAGAZINE,  October. 

The  Pearls  of  Parlay — SATURDAY  EVENING  POST,  October  14. 

SMOKE  BELLEW  :  The  Race  for  Number  Three — COSMOPOLITAN  MAGA 
ZINE,  November. 

Nothing  that  Ever  Came  to  Anything — SUNSET  MAGAZINE,  No 
vember. 

The  Jokers  of  New  Gibbon — SATURDAY  EVENING  POST,  November  11. 

The  End  of  the  Story — WOMAN'S  WORLD,  November. 

By  the  Turtles  of  Tasman — MONTHLY  MAGAZINE  SECTION  (Hearst), 
November. 

SMOKE  BELLEW:  The  Little  Man — COSMOPOLITAN  MAGAZINE,  De 
cember. 

A  Classic  of  the  Sea — N.  Y.  INDEPENDENT,  December  14. 


APPENDIX  405 

1912 

SMOKE  BELLEW:  The  Hanging  of  Cultus  George — COSMOPOLITAN 

MAGAZINE,  January. 
SMOKE  BELLEW  :  The  Mistake  of  Creation — COSMOPOLITAN  MAGAZINE, 

February. 
SMOKE   BELLEW:    A   Flutter    in    Eggs — COSMOPOLITAN    MAGAZINE, 

March. 

The  Sea  Farmer — THE  BOOKMAN,  March. 
The  Grilling  of  Lorrin  Ellery — NORTHERN  WEEKLY  GAZETTE  (TTLLOT- 

SON  SYNDICATE),  March. 

Feathers  of  the  Sun — SATURDAY  EVENING  POST,  March  9. 
Smoke  Bellew :  The  Townsite  of  Tra-Lee — COSMOPOLITAN  MAGAZINE, 

April. 

The  Prodigal  Father — WOMAN'S  WORLD,  May. 
SMOKE  BELLEW  :  The  Wonder  of  Woman — COSMOPOLITAN  MAGAZINE, 

May,  June. 

Small  Boat  Sailing — COUNTRY  LIFE  IN  AMERICA,  August. 
The  Captain  of  the  Susan  Drew  (The  Tar  Pot) — MONTHLY  MAGA 
ZINE  SECTION,  November  24. 

1913 

John  Barleycorn — SATURDAY  EVENING  POST,  March  15-May  3. 

The  Valley  of  the  Moon — COSMOPOLITAN  MAGAZINE,  April-De 
cember. 

Samuel — THE  BOOKMAN,  May. 

The  Scarlet  Plague — AMERICAN  SUNDAY  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE,  June 
8-Sept.  14. 

The  Mutiny  of  the  Elsinore  (The  Sea  Gangsters) — HEARST'S  MAGA 
ZINE,  Nov.,  1913,  to  Aug.,  1914. 

1914 

Mexican  War  Correspondence  from  Vera  Cruz — COLLIER'S  WEEKLY  : 

The  Bed  Game  of  War,  May  16. 

With  Funston's  Men,  May  23. 

Mexico's  Army  and  Ours,  May  30. 

Stalking  the  Pestilence,  June  6. 

The  Trouble-Makers  of  Mexico,  June  13. 

The  Law-Givers,  June  20. 

Our  Adventures  in  Tampico,  June  27. 
Told  in  the  Drooling  Ward — THE  BOOKMAN,  June. 
The    Star   Rover — AMERICAN    SUNDAY   MONTHLY   MAGAZINE,    Sep 
tember  6,  1914-October  3,  1915. 

1915 

The  Little  Lady  of  the  Big  House— COSMOPOLITAN  MAGAZINE,  April, 
1915,  to  January,  1916. 


406  APPENDIX 

1916 

Our  Guiltless  Scapegoats,  the  Stricken  of  Molokai  (article) — PUB 
LIC  LEDGER,  Philadelphia,  June  21. 

Politics  and  Leprosy — PUBLIC  LEDGER,  Philadelphia,  August  6. 

My  Hawaiian  Aloha  (three  articles) — COSMOPOLITAN  MAGAZINE, 
September-November. 

The  Hussy — COSMOPOLITAN  MAGAZINE,  December. 

1917 

Jerry — COSMOPOLITAN,  January- April. 

The  Kanaka  Surf  (Man  of  Mine) — HEARST'S  MAGAZINE,  February. 

Like  Argus  of  the  Ancient  Times — HEARST'S  MAGAZINE,  March. 

Michael — COSMOPOLITAN,  May-October. 

The  Bones  of  Kahekili — COSMOPOLITAN,  July. 

1918 

When  Alice  Told  Her  Soul — COSMOPOLITAN  MAGAZINE,  March. 
The  Princess — COSMOPOLITAN  MAGAZINE,  June. 
The  Tears  of  Ah  Kim — COSMOPOLITAN  MAGAZINE,  July. 
The  Water  Baby — COSMOPOLITAN  MAGAZINE,  September. 
The  Red  One — COSMOPOLITAN  MAGAZINE,  October. 
In  the  Cave  of  the  Dead  (Shin  Bones) — COSMOPOLITAN  MAGAZINE, 
November. 

1919 

On  the  Makaloa  Mat — COSMOPOLITAN  MAGAZINE,  March. 
Hearts  of  Three — N.  Y.  JOURNAL,  May  11,  June  21. 


BOOKS 

1 — THE  SON  OF  THE  WOLF,  Houghton,  Mifflin  Company,  April  7, 

1900. 
(Collected  stories) 

The  White  Silence 
The  Son  of  the  Wolf 
The  Men  of  Forty  Mile 
In  a  Far  Country 
To  the  Man  on  Trail 
The  Priestly  Prerogative 
The  Wisdom  of  the  Trail 
The  Wife  of  a  King 
An  Odyssey  of  the  North 

2 — THE  GOD  OF  HIS  FATHERS,  McClure,  Phillips  &  Company,  May, 

1901. 
(Collected  stories) 

The  God  of  His  Fathers 

The  Great  Interrogation 

Which  Makes  Men  Remember 

Siwash 

The  Man  with  the  Gash. 

Jan,  the  Unrepentant 

Grit  of  Women 

Where  the  Trail  Forks 

A  Daughter  of  the  Aurora 

At  the  Rainbow's  End 

The  Scorn  of  Women 

3 — A  DAUGHTER  OF  THE  SNOWS,  J.  B.  Lippincott  Co.,  October,  1902. 
(Novel) 

4 — CHILDREN  OF  THE  FROST,  The  Macmillan  Company,  September, 

1902. 
(Collected  stories) 

In  the  Forests  of  the  North 
The  Law  of  Life 
Nam-Bok  the  Un veracious 
The  Master  of  Mystery 
The  Sunlanders 
The  Sickness  of  Lone  Chief 
Keesh,  the  Son  of  Keesh 
The  Death  of  Ligoun 

407 


408  APPENDIX 

Li  Wan,  the  Fair 

The  League  of  the  Old  Men 

5 — THE  CRUISE  OF  THE  DAZZLER,  The  Century  Co.,  October,  1902. 
(Juvenile) 

6 — THE  CALL  OF  THE  WILD,  The  Macmillan  Company,  July,  1903. 
(Novel) 

7 — THE  KEMPTON-WACE  LETTERS,  The  Macmillan  Company,  May, 

1903. 

(A  series  of  Philosophical  Letters  on  Love.    Written  in  Collab 
oration  with  Anna  Strunsky.) 

8 — THE  PEOPLE  OF  THE  ABYSS,  The  Macmillan  Company,  November, 

1903. 
(First-hand  observation  of  the  East  End  of  London.) 

9 — THE  FAITH  OF  MEN,  The  Macmillan  Company,  April,  1904. 
(Collected  stories) 

A  Relic  of  the  Pliocene 

A  Hyperborean  Brew 

The  Faith  of  Men. 

Too  Much  Gold 

The  One  Thousand  Dozen 

The  Marriage  of  Lit-Lit 

Batard 

The  Story  of  Jees-Uck 

10 — THE  SEA  WOLF,  The  Macmillan  Company,  October,  1904. 
(Novel) 

11 — WAR  OF  THE  CLASSES,  The  Macmillan  Company,  April,  1905. 
(Sociological  essays) 
The  Class  Struggle 
The  Tramp 
The  Scab 

The  Question  of  the  Maximum 
A  Review  (Contradictory  Teachers). 
Wanted:  A  New  Law  of  Development 
How  I  Became  a  Socialist 

12 — THE  GAME,  The  Macmillan  Company,  June,  1905. 
(Novel) 

13 — TALES  OF  THE  FISH  PATROL,  The  Macmillan  Company,  Septem 
ber,  1905. 
(Juvenile) 

White  and  Yellow 

The  King  of  the  Crooks 

A  Raid  on  Oyster  Pirates 

The  Siege  of  the  ''Lancashire  Queen" 


APPENDIX  409 

Charley's  Coup 
Demetrios  Contos 
Yellow  Handkerchief 

14 — MOON-FACE  ANE  OTHER  STORIES,  The  Macmillan  Company,  Sep 
tember,  1906. 
(Collected  stories) 

Moon-Face :  A  Story  of  a  Mortal  Antipathy 

The  Leopard  Man's  Story 

Local  Color 

Amateur  Night 

The  Minions  of  Midas 

The  Shadow  and  the  Flash 

All  Gold  Canyon 

Planchette 

15 — SCORN  OF  WOMEN,  The  Macmillan  Company,  November,  1906. 
(Play) 

16 — WHITE  FANG,  The  Macmillan  Company,  September,  1906. 
(Novel) 

17 — LOVE  OF  LIFE,  AND  OTHER  STORIES,  The  Macmillan  Company, 

September,  1907. 
(Collected  stories) 
Love  of  Life 
A  Day's  Lodging 
The  White  Man's  Way 
The  Story  of  Keesh 
The  Unexpected 
Brown  Wolf 
The  Sun  Dog  Trail 
Negore,  the  Coward 

18 — BEFORE  ADAM,  The  Macmillan  Company,  February,  1907. 
(Novel) 

19 — THE  ROAD,  The  Macmillan  Company,  November,  1907. 
(Tramping  Experiences) 
Confession 
Holding  Her  Down 
Pictures 
"Pinched" 
The  Pen 

Hoboes  that  Pass  in  the  Night 
Road-Kids  and  Gay- Cats 
Two  Thousand  Stiffs 
Bulls 

20 — TKE  IRON  HEEL,  The  Macmillan  Company,  February,  1908. 
(Novel) 


410  APPENDIX 

21 — MARTIN  EDEN,  The  Macmillan  Company,  September,  1909. 
(Semi-autobiographic  Novel) 

22 — LOST  FACE,  The  Macmillan  Company,  March,  1910. 
(Collected  stories) 
Lost  Face 
Trust 

To  Build  a  Fire 
That  Spot 
Flush  of  Gold 

The  Passing  of  Marcus  O'Brien 
The  Wit  of  Porportuk 

23 — REVOLUTION,  The  Macmillan  Company,  March,  1910. 
(Sociological  Essays  and  Others) 
Revolution 
The  Somnambulists 
The  Dignity  of  Dollars 
Goliah 

The  Golden  Poppy 
The  Shrinkage  of  the  Planet 
The  House  Beautiful 
The  Gold  Hunters  of  the  North 
Foma  Gordyeeff 
These  Bones  Shall  Rise  Again 
The  Other  Animals 
The  Yellow  Peril 
What  Life  Means  to  Me 

24 — BURNING  DAYLIGHT,  The  Macmillan  Company,  October,  1910. 
(Novel) 

25 — THEFT,  The  Macmillan  Company,  November,  1910. 
(Play) 

26 — WHEN  GOD  LAUGHS,  The  Macmillan  Company,  January,  1911. 
(Collected  stories) 

When  God  Laughs 
The  Apostate 
A  Wicked  Woman 
Just  Meat 
Created  He  Them 
The  Chinago 
Make  Westing 
Semper  Idem 
A  Nose  for  the  King 
The  Francis  Spaight 
A  Curious  Fragment 
A  Piece  of  Steak 


APPENDIX  411 

27 — ADVENTURE,  The  Macmillan  Company,  March,  1911. 
(Novel) 

28 THE  CRUISE  OF  THE  SNARK,  The  Macmillan  Company,  June, 

1911. 
(Articles) 

Foreword. 

The  Inconceivable  and  Monstrous 

Adventure 

Finding  One's  Way  About 

The  First  Landfall 

A  Royal  Sport 

The  Lepers  of  Molokai 

The  House  of  the  Sun 

A  Pacific  Traverse 

Typee 

The  Nature  Man 

The  High  Seat  of  Abundance 

Stone-Fishing  of  Bora  Bora 

The  Amateur  Navigator 

Cruising  in  the  Solomons 

Beche  de  Mer  English 

The  Amateur  M.D. 

Backword 

29 — SOUTH  SEA  TALES,  The  Macmillan  Company,  October,  1911. 
(Collected  stories) 

The  House  of  Mapuhi 

The  Whale  Tooth 

Mauki 

"Yah!    Yah!    Yah!" 

The  Heathen 

The  Terrible  Solomons 

The  Inevitable  White  Man 

The  Seed  of  McCoy 

80 — A  SON  OF  THE  SUN,  Doubleday,  Page  &  Company,  May,  1912. 
(Collected  stories) 

A  Son  of  the  Sun 

The  Proud  Goat  of  Aloysius  Pankburn 

The  Devils  of  Fuatino 

The  Jokers  of  New  Gibbon 

A  Little  Account  with  Swithin  Hall 

A  Gobotu  Night 

The  Feathers  of  the  Sun 

The  Pearls  of  Parlay 

31 — THE  HOUSE  OF  PRIDE,  The  Macmillan  Company,  March,  1912. 
(Collected  stories) 

The  House  of  Pride 


412  APPENDIX 

Koolau  the  Leper 
Good-by,  Jack ! 
Aloha  Oe 
Chum  Ah  Chun 
The  Sheriff  of  Kona 

32 — SMOKE  BELLEW  TALES,  The  Century  Co.,  October,  1912. 
The  Taste  of  the  Meat 
The  Meat 

The  Stampede  to  Squaw  Creek 
Shorty  Dreams 
The  Man  on  the  Other  Bank 
The  Race  for  Number  Three 
The  Little  Man 

The  Hanging  of  Cultus  George 
The  Mistake  of  Creation 
A  Flutter  in  Eggs 
The  Town-Site  of  Tra-Lee 
Wonder  of  Woman 

33 — THE  NIGHT  BORN,  The  Century  Co.,  February,  1913. 
(Collected  stories) 
The  Night  Born 
The  Madness  of  John  Harned 
When  the  World  Was  Young 
The  Benefit  of  the  Doubt 
Winged  Blackmail 
Bunches  of  Knuckles 
War 

Under  the  Deck  Awnings 
To  Kill  a  Man 
The  Mexican 

34 — THE  ABYSMAL  BRUTE,  The  Century  Co.,  May,  1913. 
(Novel) 

35 — JOHN  BARLEYCORN,  The  Century  Co.,  August,  1913. 
(Autobiographical  novel) 

36 — THE  VALLEY  OF  THE  MOON,  The  Macmillan  Company,  October, 

1913. 
(Novel) 

37 — THE  STRENGTH  OF  THE  STRONG,  The  Macmillan  Company,  May, 

1914. 
(Collected  stories) 

The  Strength  of  the  Strong 
South  of  the  Slot 
The  Unparalleled  Invasion 
The  Enemy  of  All  the  World 
The  Dream  of  Debs 


APPENDIX  413 

The  Sea  Farmer 
Samuel 

38 — THE  MUTINY  OF  THE  ELSiNORE,  The  Macmillan  Company,  Sep 
tember,  1914. 
(Novel) 

39 — THE  SCARLET  PLAGUE,  The  Macmillan  Company,  May,  1915. 
(Novel) 

40 — THE  STAR  ROVER,  The  Macmillan  Company,  October,  1915. 
(Novel) 

41 — THE  ACORN  PLANTER,  The  Macmillan  Company,  February,  1916. 
(Play) 

42 — THE  LITTLE  LADY  OF  THE  BIG  HOUSE,  The  Macmillan  Company, 

April,  1916. 
(Novel) 

43 — THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN,  The  Macmillan  Company,  September, 

1916. 
(Collected  stories) 

By  the  Turtles  of  Tasman 
The  Eternity  of  Forms 
Told  in  the  Drooling  Ward 
The  Hobo  and  the  Fairy 
The  Prodigal  Father 
The  First  Poet 
Finis 
The  End  of  the  Story 

(This  was  the  last  book  published  before  Jack  London's  death  on 
November  22,  1916.) 

44 — THE  HUMAN  DRIFT,  The  Macmillan  Company,  February,  1917. 
(Articles  arranged  by  Jack  London  for  publication  shortly 

before  his  death,  and  published  posthumously.) 
The  Human  Drift 

Nothing  that  Ever  Came  to  Anything 
That  Dead  Men  Rise  Up  Never 
Small-boat  Sailing 
Four  Horses  and  a  Sailor 
A  Classic  of  the  Sea 
A  Wicked  Woman  (Curtain  Raiser) 
The  Birth  Mark  (Sketch) 

45 — JERRY  OF  THE  ISLANDS,  The  Macmillan  Company,  April,  1917. 
(Novel) 

46 — MICHAEL  BROTHER  OF  JERRY,  The  Macmillan  Company,  No 
vember,  1917. 


414  APPENDIX 

47 — THE  RED  ONE,  The  Macmillan  Company,  October,  1918. 
(Collected  stories) 
The  Red  One 
The  Hussy 

Like  Argus  of  the  Ancient  Times 
The  Princess 

48 — ON  THE  MAKALOA  MAT,  The  Macmillan  Company,  September, 

1919. 
(Collected  stories) 

On  the  Makaloa  Mat 

The  Bones  of  Kahekili 

When  Alice  Told  Her  Soul 

Shin-Bones 

The  Water  Baby 

The  Tears  of  Ah  Kim 

The  Kanaka  Surf 

49 — HEARTS  OF  THREE,  The  Macmillan  Company,  September,  1920. 
(Novel  for  moving-picture,  with  explanatory  Preface.) 

Other  collections,  such  as  War  Notes  (Japanese-Russian,  and  Vera 
Cruz,  1914),  and  Prize-Fight  articles,  will  be  issued  in  course 
of  time. 


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